8.3.D.  LIBRA! 


i 


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VARIA 

A.   Reppl ier 


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I 


V  A  R  I  A 


A'//  ,   ; 


By  AGNES    REPPLIER 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
IIOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   AND  COMPANY 
ilibrrsfi&f  prrtfrf, 


1C 


1897 


vl 


Krppltcr. 


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ALL  KKillTS  UKSKUVED 


CONTENTS. 

PAQI 
Tun  ETKIINAL  FKMININK   ......        1 

THK  DEATHLKHS  DIAIIY DO 

GUIDES:  A  PUOTKMT  . titt 

LITTLE  PHAIUSKIM  IN  FICTION       .        .       .       .         85 
THE  FETE  UK  GAYANT       .        .       .       .       .       .101) 

CAKES  AND  ALE 130 

OLD  WINE  AND  NEW 155 

THE  KOYAL  ROAD  OK  FICTION       ....        185 
FIIOM  THE  HKADKK'H  STANDPOINT    .        .        .        .217 


"  Little  Ph:irisees  in  Fiction  "  is  reprinted  by  perni'msiou 
of  th«  i>ul»lisli«r8  from  '* Scribner'n  Magazine,"  and  "From 
tho  Header* H  Standpoint"  from  "The  North  American 
llfvirw  "  (where  it  was  called  "  Thu  ContentiouHiic'MH  of 
Modem  Novel  Writero" ). 


VARIA. 


THE  ETERNAL   FEMININE. 

THEIIE  are  few  things  more  wearisome  in 
a  fairly  fatiguing  life  than  the  monotonous 
repetition  of  a  phrase  which  catches  and  holds 
the  public  fancy  by  virtue  of  its  total  lack  of 
significance.  Such  a  phrase  —  employed  with 
tireless  irrelevance  in  journalism,  and  creep 
ing  into  the  pages  of  what  is,  by  courtesy, 
called  literature  —  is  the  "  new  woman."  It 
has  furnished  inexhaustible  jests  to  "  Life " 
and  "  Punch/1  and  it  has  been  received  with 
seriousness  by  those  who  road  the  present  with 
no  light  from  the  past,  and  so  fail  to  perceive 
that  all  femininity  is  as  old  as  Lilith,  and  that 
the  variations  of  the  type  began  when  Eve 
arrived  in  the  Garden  of  Paradise  to  dispute 
the  claims  of  her  predecessor.  "  If  the  fif 
teenth  century  discovered  America,"  says  a 
vehement  advocate  of  female  progress,  "  it 


2  VARIA. 

was  reserved  for  the  nineteenth  century  to 
discover  woman  ;  "  and  this  remarkable  state 
ment  has  been  gratefully  applauded  by  people 
who  have  apparently  forgotten  all  about 
Judith 'and  Zenobia,  Cleopatra  and  Cather 
ine  de  Medici,  Saint  Theresa  and  Jeanne 
d'Arc,  Catherine  of  Russia  and  Elizabeth  of 
England,  who  played  parts  of  some  impor 
tance,  for  good  and  ill,  in  the  fortunes  of  the 
world. 

"Les  Anciuns  out  tout  dit,"  and  the  most 
curious  thing  about  the  arguments  now  ad 
vanced  in  behalf  of  progressive  womanhood 
is  that  they  have  an  air  of  specious  novelty 
about  them  when  they  have  all  been  uttered 
many  times  before.  There  is  scarcely  a  prin 
ciple  urged  to-day  by  enthusiastic  champions 
of  the  cause  which  was  not  deftly  handled  by 
that  eminently  "new"  woman,  Christine  de 
Pisan,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  before  the 
court  of  Charles  VI.  of  France.  If  wo  read 
even  a  few  pages  of  "  La  Cite  des  Dames,"  — 
and  how  delightfully  modern  is  the  very  title ! 
—  we  recognize  the  same  familiar  sentiments, 
albeit  disguised  in  archaic  language  and  with 
many  old-time  conceits,  that  we  are  accus- 


THE   ETERNAL   FEMININE.  3 

toined   to   hearing  every  day.      Christine   is 
both  amused  and  wearied,  as  are  we,  by  the 
foolish  invectives  of  men  against  our  useful 
and  necessary  sex.     She  is  forced  to  conclude 
that  God  had  made  a  foul  thing  when  lie 
made  woman,  yet  wonders  a  little  —  not  un 
naturally  —  that  "  so  worshipful  a  Workman 
should    have   deigned    to    turn   out   so   poor 
u  piece  of  work."     This  lends  her  to  reflect 
on  our  alleged   weakness  and   incapacity,  of 
which   she   finds,  as  do  we,  but  insufficient 
proof.     She  is  firm  to  insist,  as  do  we,  that 
if  little  maidens  are  put  to  school,  and  care 
fully  taught  the  sciences   like   men-children, 
they  learn  as  well,  and  make  as  steady  prog 
ress.     What   is   more,  she  is  able   to   prove 
her  case,  which  we  often  are  not,  by  writing 
a  grave,  solid,  and  systematic  treatise  on  arms 
and    the    science   of   war;    a   treatise   which 
handles    every   topic   from   the   details   of   a 
siege  to  .safe  conducts,  military  passports,  and 
the    laws   of    knightly   courtesy.      And   this 
complete  soldier's  manual  was  held  to  be  of 
practical   value   and    an    authority   in    those 
battle-loving   days.      It   may   also   be   worth 
while    to    mention   that   Christine   dc   Pisan 


4  VARIA. 

supported  an  invalid  husband,  two  poor  rela 
tions,  and  three  children  by  her  pen ;  and 
what  more  could  any  struggling  authoress  of 
our  own  century  be  reasonably  expected  to 
accomplish? 

Another  interesting  fact  presented  for  our 
consideration,  in  those  days  of  Civic  Clubs  and 
active  training  for  citizenship,  is  that  one  of 
the  first  Englishwomen  who  entered  the  field 
of  letters  professionally,  as  a  recognized  rival 
of  professional  men  writers,  entered  it  as  a 
politician,  and  a  very  acrid  and  scurrilous 
politician  at  that,  who  made  herself  as  abhor 
rent  and  abhorred  as  any  law-giver  in  Eng 
land.  This  was  Mary  Manley,  who,  in  the 
reign  of  Queen  Anne,  wrote  the  "  New  Ata- 
lantis,"  allying  herself  vigorously  with  the 
Tories,  and  pouring  forth  the  vials  of  her 
venom  on  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  and  — 
what  is  harder  for  us  to  forgive  —  on  Kichard 

O 

Stecle,  whom  all  women  are  bound  to  honor 
a  little  and  love  a  great  deal,  as  having  been, 
in  spite  of  many  failings,  our  true  and  chiv 
alrous  friend.  Not  one  of  all  the  modern 
apologists  who  prate  about  us  endlessly  to-day 
iu  print,  in  pulpit,  on  the  platform,  and  on  tho 


THE   ETERNAL   FEMININE.  5 

stage,  has  reached  the  simple  tenderness,  the 
undeviating  insight  of  Steele. 

These  things,  however,  counted  for  little 
with  Mary  Manley,  who  had  less  sentiment 
and  less  reticence  than  most  party  writers  of 
even  that  outspoken  and  unsentimental  age. 
Perhaps  to  attack  those  high  in  power  who 
have  done  their  country  such  priceless  service 
as  did  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  and  to  at 
tack  them,  moreover,  with  an  utter  lack  of 
decency  and  self-respect,  is  not  precisely  the 
kind  of  deed  which  warms  our  hearts  to  female 
politicians  ;  but  it  must  be  confessed  that  if 
this  vehement  partisan  in  petticoats  had  all 
the  acerbity  of  a  woman,  she  had  all  the  cour 
age  of  one  too.  When  her  publisher  was 
prosecuted  for  the  scandalous  libels  of  the 
"  New  Atalantis,"  she  did  not  seek  to  shelter 
herself  behind  his  responsibility ;  but  appeared 
briskly  before  the  Court  of  King's  Bench, 
acknowledged  the  authorship  of  her  book,  and, 
with  magnificent  feminine  effrontery,  asserted 
it  was  entirely  fictitious.  Lord  Sunderland, 
who  examined  her,  and  who  appears  to  have 
been  vastly  diverted  by  the  wholo  proceeding, 
pointed  out  urbanely  certain  passages  of  a  di.s- 


<)  VAIUA. 

tinctly  libelous  character  which  could  scarcely 
have  been  the  result  of  chanoo,  '*  Thou/' 
replied  llie  imperturbable  Mrs.  Mauley,  "it 
must  have  heeu  inspiration/*  Again  Lord 
Sunderland  interj)oscd  with  the  suggestion 
thai  details  of  that  order  eould  not  well  !><• 
traced  to  sueh  a  souree.  "There  are  hud 
angels  as  well  as  good,"  said  Mrs.  Mauley 
serenely,  and  escaped  all  penalties  for  her 
wrong-doing;  earning  for  herself,  moreover, 
solid  rewards  when  the  Tories  returned  to 
power,  which  is  something  that  never  happens 
to  any  would-hc  female  politician  of  to-day. 

For  indeed  the  newly  awakened  and  intelli 
gent  interest  which  women  are  supposed  to  he 
taking  in  things  political  is  hut  a  faint  reflec 
tion  of  the  fiery  zest  with  which  our  Knglish 
great -great-  grandmothers  threw  themselves 
into  the  affairs  of  the  nation,  meddling  and 
mending  and  marring  everywhere,  until  Addi- 
sou,  hopeless  of  any  other  appeal,  was  fain  to 
remind  them  that  nothing  was  so  injurious 
to  beauty  as  inordinate  party  zeal.'  "It  gives 
an  ill-natured  cast  to  the  eye,"  he  wrote  warn- 
iirgly,  "  and  a  disagreeable  sourness  to  the 
look.  Besides  that,  it  makes  the  lines  too 


TIIK   KTKKNAI.   FKMININK.  7 

strong,  and  flushes  them  worse  than  brandy, 
Indeed  1  never  knew  21  parl\  woman  who  kept 

lid'  countenance   for  a  IwelvcillOlltll." 

Hut  little  the  ardent  politicians  cared  for 
Mich  mild  arguments  as  these.  In  1731),  on 
the  occasion  of  an  especially  important  debate 
in  the  House  of  Lords,  the  Chancellor  gave 
orders  that  ladies  were  not  to  he  admitted, 
and  that  the  gallery  was  to  he  reserved  for 
the  Commons,  The  Dnehess  of  Queens  berry, 
the  Dnehess  of  Ancastcr,  Lady  Huntingdon, 
and  a  number  of  other  determined  women  pre 
sented  themselves  at  the  door  by  nine  o'clock 
in  the  morning.  When  refused  entrance,  the 
Duchess  of  Queensherry,  with  an  oath  as  reso 
nant  as  the  doorkeeper's,  swore  that  in  they 
would  come,  iu  spile  of  the  Chancellor  and 
the  Lords  and  the  Commons  to  hoot.  The 
Peers  resolved  to  starve  them  into  docility, 
and  gave  orders  that  the  doors  should  not  be 
opened  until  they  raised  their  siege.  These 
Ama/.ons  stood  there,  so  we  are  in  formed  by 
Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu,  from  nine  in 
the  morning  until  live  in  the  afternoon,  un- 
cheered  by  food  or  drink,  but  solacing  them 
selves  repeatedly  by  thumping  and  kicking 


8  VARIA. 

at  the  doors  with  so  much  violence  that  the 
speakers  in  the  House  were  scarcely  heard. 
When  the  Lords  remained  unconquered  by 
such  tactics,  the  two  duchesses,  well  versed 
in  the  stratagems  of  war,  commanded  half  an 
hour  of  dead  silence ;  and  the  Chancellor 
thinking  this  silence  a  certain  proof  of  their 
withdrawal  (the  Commons,  who  had  been 
kept  out  all  this  time,  being  very  impatient  to 
enter),  the  doors  were  finally  opened ;  where 
upon  the  astute  and  triumphant  women  rushed 
in,  and  promptly  secured  the  best  seats  in  the 
gallery.  There  they  stayed,  with  magnificent 
endurance,  until  after  eleven  at  night,  and 
indulged  themselves  during  the  debate  in  such 
noisy  tokens  of  regard  or  disapproval  that 
the  greatest  confusion  ensued.  The  newest  of 
new  women  is  but  a  modest  and  shrinking 
wild-flower  when  compared  with  such  flaunt 
ing  arrogance  as  this. 

Nor  were  the  "  platform  women,"  as  they 
are  unkindly  called  to-day,  unknown  or  even 
uncommon  in  those  good  old  times  of  domes 
ticity  ;  for  nearly  a  hundred  and  twenty  years 
ago  the  "  London  Mirror  "  printed  a  caustic 
protest  against  the  mannishness  of  fashionable 


THE   ETERNAL   FEMININE.  9 

ladies,  their  pernicious  meddling  with  things 
which  concerned  them  not,  and,  above  all, 
their  calm  effrontery  in  addressing  public 
audiences  on  political  and  social  questions, 
"  with  the  spirit  and  freedom  of  the  boldest 
male  orators."  In  fact,  several  societies  had 
been  already  formed  with  the  express  view  of 
enlightening  the  public  as  to  the  opinions 
of  women  on  mutters  which  were  presumably 
beyond  their  jurisdiction,  and  of  pushing 
these  opinions  to  some  ultimate  and  practical 
conclusion,  —  which  is  the  precise  object  of 
similar  societies  to-day.  For  the  determina 
tion  of  the  sex  from  the  beginning  has  been, 
not  merely  to  assert  its  own  intellectual  inde 
pendence,  like  the  heroine  of  Vanbrugh's 
comedy,  —  so  out  of  date  yet  so  strikingly 
modern,  —  who  affirms  that  the  pleasure  of 
women's  lives  is  founded  on  entire  liberty  to 
think  and  to  do  what  they  please ;  but  there 
was  always  the  well-defined  anticipation  of 
influencing  by  unconstrained  thought  and  ac 
tion  the  current  of  affairs.  They  wished  their 
voices  to  count.  When  Dr.  Saeheverell  was 
prosecuted  by  the  Whigs  for  his  famous  ser 
mons  on  the  neglect  of  the  church  by  the  gov- 


10  }'AJt/A. 

eminent,  the  women  of  London  made  bis  cause 
their  own.  All  duties  and  all  diversions  gave 
way  before  the  paramount  excitement  of  this 
trial.  Churches  and  theatres  were  alike  de 
serted.  "The  ladies  lay  aside  their  tea  and 
chocolate,"  writes  Defoe  pleasantly,  u  leave  off 
visiting  after  dinner,  and,  forming  themselves  ' 
into  cabals,  turn  privy  councillors,  and  settle 
the  affairs  of  state.  Gallantry  and  gayety  are 
given  up  for  business.  Even  the  little  girls 
talk  polities."  Lady  Wentworth,  with  her 
customary  aeuteness,  remarked  that  Dr.  Sa- 
cheverell  would  make  the  women  good  house 
wives.  Tbe  laziest  of  them  had  ucased  to  lie 
in  bed  in  the  mornings,  since  the  trial  began 
every  day  at  seven.  So  great  was  the  enthu 
siasm  for  the  persecuted  divine,  that  his  con 
viction  and  punishment,  though  the  latter  was 
purely  nominal,  helped  largely  to  overthrow 
the  Whig  ministry,  and  added  one  more  tri 
umph  to  the  energetic  interference,  the  "  per 
nicious  meddling."  of  women. 

To  understand,  however,  the  full  extent  of 
female  influence  in  affairs  of  state,  we  should 
turn  to  France,  where  for  centuries  the  sex 
ha.s  played  an  all-important  part,  for  good  and 


TI1K   ETERNAL   FEMINIZE.  11 

ill,  in  the  ruling  of  the  land.  Any  page  of 
French  history  will  tell  this  tale,  from  the 
fur-off  day  when  Brabant  and  JIainault,  and 
Kngland,  too,  listened  to  the  persuasions  of 
Joan  of  Valois,  raised  the  siege  of  Tournay, 
and  suffered  the  exhausted  nation  to  breathe 
again,  down  to  the  less  impetuous  age  when 
that  astute  princess,  Charlotte  Elizabeth,  re 
marked —  out  of  the  fullness  of  her  hatred  for 
Mine,  de  Maintcnon  —  that  France  had  been 
governed  by  too  many  women,  young  and  old, 
and  that  it  was  almost  time  the  men  began  to 
take  a  hand.  Perhaps  we  can  best  appreciate 
the  force  of  feminine  dominion  when  we  read 
the  half-amused,  half-exasperated  comments 
of  Gouvcrneur  Morris,  whose  diary,  written 
on  the  eve  of  the  French  Kevolution,  reveals 
an  intimate  knowledge  of  that  strange  society, 
already  crumbling  to  decay.  At  a  dinner  in 
the  chateau  of  M.  le  Norrage,  the  political 
situation  is  discussed  with  so  much  vehemence 
by  the  men  that  the  women's  gentler  voices  are 
lost  in  the  uproar,  which  sorely  vexes  these 
fair  politicians,  accustomed  to  being  listened 
to  with  deference.  "  They  will  have  more 
of  this,1'  says  Morris  shrewdly,  "  if  the  States 


12  VARIA. 

General  should  really  iix  a  constitution.  Such 
an  event  would  be  particularly  distressing  to 
the  women  of  this  country,  for  they  would  be 
thereby  deprived  of  their  share  in  the  govern 
ment  ;  and  hitherto  they  have  exercised  an 
authority  almost  unlimited,  with  no  small  plea 
sure  to  themselves,  though  not  perhaps  witli 
the  greatest  advantage  to  the  community." 

lie  reali/es  this  more  fully  when  he  goes 
to  consult  witli  M.  de  Corney  on  a  question 
of  finance,  and  finds  that  Mine,  de  Corney  is 
well  acquainted  with  the  matter.  "  It  is  the 
woman's  country,"  he  writes  with  whimsical 
dismay  ;  and  lie  is  fain  to  repeat  the  sentiment 
hotly  and  angrily  when  Mine,  de  Stael,  who 
was  not  wont  to  be  troubled  by  petty  scruples, 
dupes  him  into  showing  her  some  papers,  and 
gossips  about  them  to  her  father  and  Bishop 
d'Autun.  u  She  is  a  devilish  creature,"  says 
the  outraged  American,  feeling  he  has  been 
outwitted  in  the  game ;  but  it  is  difficult,  in 
the  face  of  such  little  anecdotes,  to  distinguish 
between  the  new  woman  and  the  old. 

One  thing  is  tolerably  sure.  The  new 
woman,  to  whatever  century  she  belonged,  — 
and  she  has  been  under  varying  aspects  the 


THE  ETERNAL   FEMININE.  13 

product  of  every  age,  —  has  never  achieved 
great  popularity  with  man.  This  is  not  wholly 
to  her  discredit ;  for  the  desire  to  look  at  life 
from  a  standpoint  of  her  own,  while  irritating 
and  subversive  of  general  order,  cannot  reason 
ably  bo  accounted  a  crime.  Yet  when  we  con 
sider  the  invectives  which  have  boon  hurled  at 
women  from  the  day  they  were  created  until 
now,  we  find  that  most  of  them  have  for  their 
basis  the  natural  indignation  which  is  born 
of  disregarded  advice.  The  whole  ground 
for  complaint  is  summed  up  admirably  in 
the  angry  remonstrance  of  Clarissa  Ilarlowe's 
uncle^  when  his  niece  prefers  the  lover  she  has 
chosen  for  herself  to  the  suitor  chosen  for  her 
by  her  family.  "  1  have  always  found  a  most 
horrid  romantic  perverseness  in  your  sex," 
says  this  experienced  old  man.  "  To  do  and 
to  love  what  you  should  not,  is  meat,  drink, 
and  vesture  to  you  all."  There  lies  the  argu 
ment  in  a  nutshell ;  and  if  Richardson  be  the 
first  great  English  novelist  who  has  painted 
for  us  a  woman  moved  by  the  secret  and  power 
ful  impulses  of  her  heart,  the  unwritten  and 
irrefutable  laws  of  her  own  nature,  he  has 
also  expressed  for  us  in  brief  and  accurate 


14  VARIA. 

phraseology  the  masculine  reading  of  this 
problem.  "Nothing  worse  than  woman  can 
befall  mankind,"  says  Sophocles  apprehen 
sively  ;  and  far-off  Hesiod,  as  cheerless,  but 
somewhat  more  philosophical,  explains  that 
our  sex  is  a  necessary  deduction  from  the 
coveted  happiness  of  life.  Burton  tells  us  of 
an  excellent  old  anchorite  who  fell  into  a  "  cold 
palsy  "  whenever  a  woman  was  brought  before 
him  ;  which  pious  and  consistent  behavior  is 
more  to  my  liking  than  the  gay  ingratitude  of 
the  Greeks,  who  drew  their  inspiration  from 
the  fairness  and  weakness,  the  passion  and 
pain  of  women,  and  then  bequeathed  to  all 
coming  ages  the  weight  of  their  dispassionate 
condemnation.  Better  to  me  is  the  old  San 
skrit  saying,  "  The  hearts  of  women  are  as 
the  hearts  of  wolves ; "  or  the  Turkish  jibe 
anent  the  length  of  our  hair  and  the  shortness 
of  our  wits ;  or  that  last  and  final  verdict 
from  the  pen  of  our  modern  analyst,  Mr. 
George  Meredith,  "  Woman  will  be  the  last 
thing  civilized  by  man/'  —  an  ambiguously 
brilliant  epigram  which  waits  for  the  elucida 
tion  of  the  critics. 

The   really  curious  thing  is,   not  that  we 


THE   ETERNAL    FEMININE.  15 

should  have  been  found  in  a  general  way 
unsatisfactory,  whieli  was  to  bo  expected,  but 
that  we  should  bo  held  to  blame  for  such 
widely  divergent  desires.  Take  for  example 
the  indifference  of  women  to  intellectual  pur 
suits,  which  has  earned  for  them  centuries 
of  masculine  contempt ;  and  their  thirst  for 
intellectual  pursuits,  which  has  earned  for 
them  centuries  of  masculine  disapprobation. 
On  the  one  hand,  we  have  some  of  the  most 
delightful  writers  England  has  known,  calmly 
reminding  them  that  sewing  is  their  one  legit 
imate  occupation.  u  Now  for  women/'  says 
dear  old  Robert  Burton,  u  instead  of  laborious 
studies,  they  have  curious  needlework,  cutwork, 
spinning,  bonelace,  and  many  pretty  devices  of 
their  own  making  with  which  to  adorn  their 
houses."  Addison,  a  hundred  years  later,  does 
not  seem  to  have  advanced  one  step  beyond 
this  eminently  conservative  attitude.  lie 
wishes  with  all  his  heart  that  women  would 
apply  themselves  more  to  embroidery  and  less 
to  rhyme,  a  wish  which  was  heartily  echoed 
by  Edward  Fitzgerald,  who  carried  unim 
paired  to  the  nineteenth  century  these  sound 
and  orthodox  principles.  Addison  would 


1C  VAR/A. 

rather  listen  to  his  fair  friends  discussing  the 
merits  of  red  and  l>luo  embroidery  silks  than 
the  merits  of  Whigs  and  Tories.  lie  would 
rather  see  them  work  the  whole  of  the  battle 
of  Blenheim  into  their  tapestry  frames  than 
hear  their  opinions  onee  about  the  Duke  of 
Maiiborough.  He  waxes  eloquent  and  even 
vindictive  —  for  so  mild  a  man  —  over  the 
neglect  of  needlework  amid  more  stirring 
avocations.  "It  grieves  my  heart,"  he  says, 
speaking  in  the  character  of  an  indignant 
letter-writer  to  the  "  Spectator,"  "  to  see  a 
couple  of  proud,  idle  flirts  sipping  their  tea 
for  a  whole  afternoon"  —  and  doubtless  dis 
cussing  politics  with  heat  —  "  in  a  room  hung 
round  with  the  industry  of  their  great-grand 
mothers." 

It  has  been  observed  before  this  that  it  is 
always  the  great-grandmothers  in  whom  is 
embodied  the  last  meritoriousness  of  the  sex ; 
always  the  great-grandmothers  for  whom  is 
cherished  this  pensive  masculine  regard.  And 
it  may  perhaps  be  worth  while  to  note  that 
these  "  proud,  idle  flirts "  of  Addison's  day 
have  now  become  our  virtuous  great-grand 
mothers,  and  occupy  the  same  shadowy  ped- 


T11K   ETERNAL   FEMININE.  17 

cstal  of  industrious  domesticity.  I  have  little 
doubt  that  tttcir  great  •  grandmothers,  who 
worked  —  or  did  not  work  —  the  tapestries 
upon  the  Addisoniau  walls,  were  in  their  day 
the  subject  of  many  pointed  reproaches,  and 
bidden  to  look  backward  on  the  departed  vir 
tues  of  still  remoter  generations.  And,  by  the 
same  token,  it  is  encouraging  to  think  that, 
in  the  years  to  come,  we  too  shall  figure  as 
lost  examples  of  distinctly  feminine  traits ;  we 
too  shall  be  praised  for  our  sewing  and  our 
silence,  our  lack  of  learning  and  our  "stayat- 
homeativeness,"  that  quality  which  Peacock 
declared  to  be  the  finest  and  rarest  attribute 
of  the  sex.  What  a  pleasure  for  the  new 
woman  of  to-day,  who  finds  herself  vilified 
beyond  her  modest  deserts,  to  reflect  that  she 
is  destined  to  shine  as  the  revered  and  fault 
less  great-grandmother  of  the  future. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  contrasting  na 
ture  of  the  complaints  lodged  against  her  in 
her  more  fallible  character  of  great-grand 
daughter.  Ilazlitt,  who  was  by  no  means 
indifferent  to  women  nor  to  their  regard, 
clearly  and  angrily  asserted  that  intellectual 
attainments  in  a  man  were  no  rccommcnda- 


18  VARIA. 

tion  to  the  female  heart,  —  they  merely  puzzled 
and  annoyed.  "If  scholars  talk  to  women  of 
what  they  can  understand,"  he  says,  "their 
hearers  are  none  the  wiser;  if  they  talk  of 
other  tiling's,  they  only  prove  themselves  fools." 
Mr.  Walter  Bagehot  was  quite  of  Huzlitt's 
opinion,  save  that  his  serener  disposition 
remained  unvexed  by  a  state  of  affairs  which 
seemed  to  him  natural  and  right.  lie  thought 
it,  on  the  whole,  a  wise  ordinance  of  nature 
that  women  should  look  askance  upon  all 
intellectual  superiority,  and  that  genius  should 
simply  "  put  them  out."  —  "  It  is  so  strange. 
It  does  not  come  into  the  room  as  usual.  It 
says  such  unpleasant  things.  Once  it  forgot 
to  brush  its  hair.*'  The  well-balanced  femi 
nine  mind,  he  insisted,  prefers  ordinary  tastes, 
settled  manners,  customary  conversation,  de 
fined  and  practical  pursuits. 

But  are  women  so  comfortably  and  happily 
indifferent  to  genius?  Some  have  loved  it  to 
their  own  destruction,  feeding  it  as  oil  feeds 
flame ;  and  other  some  have  fluttered  about 
the  light,  singeing  themselves  to  no  great 
purpose,  as  pathetically  in  the  way  as  the 
doomed  moth.  At  the  same  time  that  Hazlitt 


THE   ETERNAL   FEMININE.  19 

accused  the  whole  sex  of  this  impatient  dis 
regard  for  inspiration,  Keats  found  it  only 
too  devoted  at  the  shrine.  "  I  have  met  with 
women,"  ho  says  with  frank  contempt,  "  who 
I  really  think  would  like  to  be  wedded  to  a 
poem,  and  given  away  by  a  novel."  At  the 
same  time  that  Mr.  Pater  said  coldly  that 
there  were  duties  to  the  intellect  which  women 
but  seldom  understood,  Sir  Francis  Doyle  pro 
tested  with  humorous  indignation  against  the 
frenzy  for  female  education  which  filled  his 
lecture-room  with  petticoats,  and  threatened 
to  turn  the  universities  of  England  into  glo 
rified  girls'  schools.  At  the  same  time  that 
Froude  was  writing,  with  the  enviable  self- 
confidence  which  was  his  blessed  birthright, 
that  it  is  the  part  of  man  to  act  and  labor, 
while  women  arc  merely  bound  by  "  the  nega 
tive  obedience  to  prohibitory  precepts ; "  or, 
in  other  words,  that  there  is  nothing  in  the 
world  which  they  ought  to  do,  but  plenty  which 
they  ought  to  refrain  from  doing,  Stevenson 
was  insisting  with  all  the  vehemence  of  youth 
that  it  is  precisely  this  contentment  with  pro 
hibitory  precepts,  this  deadening  passivity  of 
the  female  heart,  which  "  narrows  and  damps 


20  VARIA. 

the  spirits  of  generous  "men,"  so  that  in  mar 
riage  a  man  becomes  slack  and  selfish,  "  and 
undergoes  a  fatty  degeneration  of  his  moral 
being."  Which  is  precisely  the  lesson  thun 
dered  at  us  very  unpleasantly  by  Mr.  Kudyard 
Kipling  in  "The  Gadsbys." 

"  You  may  carve  it  on  his  tombstone,  you  may  cut  it  on  his 

card, 
That  a  young-  man  married  is  a  young-  man  marred." 

Now  I  wonder  if  the  peasant  and  his  don 
key  were  in  harder  straits  than  the  poor 
woman,  who  has  stepped  down  the  centuries 
under  this  disheartening,  because  inevitable 
condemnation.  Always  either  too  new  or  too 
old,  too  intelligent  or  too  stupid,  too  restless 
after  what  concerns  her  not,  or  too  passively 
content  with  narrow  aims  and  outlooks,  she 
is  sure  to  be  in  the  wrong  whether  she  mounts 
her  ass  or  leads  him.  lias  the  satire  now 
directed  against  the  higher  education  of  women 
-a  tiresome  phrase  reiterated  for  the  most 
part  without  meaning  —  any  flavor  of  novelty, 
save  for  those  who  know  no  satirists  older  than 
the  contributors  to  "Punch"  and  "Life"? 
It  is  just  as  new  as  the  new  woman  who  pro 
vokes  it,  just  as  familiar  in  the  annals  of  so- 


THE   ETERNAL   FEMININE.  21 

ciety.  Take  as  a  modern  specimen  that  plea 
sant  verse  from  Owen  Seaman's  "  Horace  at 
Cambridge,"  which  describes  gracefully  and 
with  good  temper  the  rush  of  young  English 
women  to  the  University  Extension  lectures. 

"  Pencil  iu  pouch,  and  syllabus  in  hand, 
Hugging  selected  jK)ets  of  the  land, 
Keats,  Shelley,  Coleridge,  —  all  but  Thomas  Hood 
And  Byron  (more  's  the  pity  !), 
They  caught  the  local  colour  where  they  could ; 
And  members  of  the  feminine  committee 
To  native  grace  an  added  charm  would  bring 
Of  light  blue  ribbons,  —  not  of  abstinence, 
But  bearing  just  this  sense  — 
Inquire  within  on  any  mortal  thing." 

This  is  charming,  both  in  form  and  spirit, 
and  I  wish  Sir  Francis  Doyle  had  lived  to 
read  it.  But  the  same  spirit  and  an  even 
better  form  may  be  found  in  Pope's  familiar 
lines  which  mock  —  kindly  as  yet,  and  in  a 
friendly  fashion  —  at  the  vaunted  scholarship 
of  Lady  Mary  Wortlcy  Montagu. 

"  In  beauty  and  wit 

No  mortal  as  yet 
To  question  your  empire  has  dared  ; 

But  men  of  discerning 
Have  thought  thai,  in  learning, 
To  yield  to  a  lady  WJUH  hard," 


22  VAHJA. 

Even  the  little  jibes  and  jeers  which 
"  Punch  "  and  "  Life  "  have  flung  so  liberally 
at  girl  graduates,  and  over-educated  young 
women,  have  their  counterparts  in  the  pages 
of  the  "Spectator,"  when  Molly  and  Kitty 
are  so  busy  discussing  atmospheric  pressure 
that  they  forget  the  proper  ingredients  for  a 
sack  posset ;  and  when  they  assure  their  uncle, 
who  is  suffering  sorely  from  gout,  that  pleasure 
and  pain  are  imaginary  distinctions,  and  that 
if  he  would  only  fix  his  mind  upon  this  great 
truth  he  would  no  longer  feel  the  twitches. 
When  we  consider  that  this  letter  to  the 
"  Spectator  "  was  written  over  a  hundred  and 
eighty  years  ago,  we  must  acknowledge  that 
young  England  of  1711  is  closely  allied  with 
young  England  and  with  young  America  of 
181)7,  both  of  whom  are  ever  ready  to  assure 
us  that  we  are  not,  as  we  had  ignorantly  sup 
posed  ourselves  to  be,  in  pain,  but  only  "  in 
error."  And  it  is  even  possible  that  old 
England  and  old  America  of  1897,  though 
separated  by  nearly  two  centuries  from  old 
England  of  1711,  remain,  when  gouty,  in  tho 
same  darkened  frame  of  mind,  and  are  equally 
unable  to  grasp  the  joyous  truths  held  out  to 
them  so  alluringly  by  youth. 


TIIK   ETERNAL    FEMININE.  23 

Is  there,  then,  anything  new  ?  The  jests  of 
all  journalism,  English,  French,  and  Ameri 
can,  anent  the  mannishness  of  the  modern 
woman's  dress  ?  Surely,  in  these  days  of  bi 
cycles  and  outdoor  sports,  this  at  least  is  a 
fresh  satiric  development.  But  a  hundred 
and  seventy-five  years  ago  just  such  a  piece  of 
banter  was  leveled  at  the  head  of  the  then 
new  and  mannish  woman,  who,  riding  through 
the  country,  asks  a  tenant  of  Sir  Roger  do 
Coverley  if  the  house  near  at  hand  be  Cover- 
ley  Hall.  The  rustic,  with  his  eyes  fixed  on 
the  cocked  hat,  periwig,  and  laced  riding-coat 
of  his  questioner,  answers  confidently,  "  Yes, 
sir."  "  And  is  Sir  Roger  a  married  man  ?  " 
queries  the  well-pleased  dame.  But  by  this 
time  the  bumpkin's  gaze  has  traveled  slowly 
downwards,  and  lie  sees  with  dismay  that  this 
strange  apparition  finishes,  mermaid-fashion, 
in  a  riding-skirt.  Horrified  at  his  mistake, 
he  falters*  out,  "  No,  madam,"  and  takes  ref 
uge  from  embarrassment  in  flight.  Turn  the 
horse  into  a  wheel,  the  long  skirt  into  a  short 
one,  or  into  no  skirt  at  all,  and  we  have  here 
all  the  material  needed  for  the  ever-recurring 
joko  presented  to  us  so  monotonously  to-day. 


24  '  VARIA. 

The  belligerent  sex,  Mr.  Lang  has  called 
us,  and  we  are  not  stouter  fighters  now  than 
we  have  been  through  all  the  centuries,  albeit 
the  methods  of  warfare  have  changed  some 
what,  and  changed  perchance  for  ill.  It  is 
pleasant  to  think  that  in  the  days  when  muscle 
wus  better  than  mind  (which  days,  thanks  to 
our  colleges,  are  fast  returning  to  us),  and  the 
sword  was  very  much  mightier  than  the  pen, 
women  held  their  own  as  easily  as  they  do 
now.  Not  only  through  the  emotions  they 
inspired,  as  when  the  fair  Countess  of  Salis 
bury,  beautiful,  courageous,  and  chaste,  heart 
ened  the  little  garrison  besieged  at  Warwick, 
so  that,  as  it  is  quaintly  chronicled,  "  every 
man  was  made  as  valiant  as  two  men,  by 
reason  of  her  kind  and  loving  words."  Not 
only  through  the  loyalty  they  evoked,  as  when 
the  heroic  Countess  of  Montford  defended  her 
husband's  cause  through  twelve  years  of  well- 
nigh  hopeless  struggle,  until,  by  her  invincible 
bravery  and  determination,  she  placed  her  un- 
heroie  son  upon  the  ducal  chair  of  Brittany. 
Not  only  through  their  astuteness  in  diplo 
macy,  as  when  the  crafty  Duchess  of  Bra 
bant,  "  a  huly,"  says  Froissart,  "  of  a  very 


THE  ETERNAL  FEMININE.  25 

active  mind,"  duped  England,  cajoled  France, 
and  united  the  great  houses  of  Burgundy  and 
Hainault  in  a  double  marriage,  overcoming 
the  well-nigh  insuperable  obstacles  by  her 
woman's  wit  and  her  resistless  resolution. 
But  when  it  came  to  downright  lighting,  these 
hard}  dames  were  not  much  behind  their 
husbands  and  brothers  in  the  field.  In  that 
sharp  warfare  which  the  Black  Prince  carried 
into  the  heart  of  Spain,  it  chanced  that  Sir 
Thomas  Trivet  at  the  head  of  an  English  force 
laid  siege  to  the  Castilian  town  of  Alaro.  Its 
garrison  made  a  rash  sortie,  were  trapped  in 
an  ambuscade,  and  nearly  every  man  was  slain 
or  taken  prisoner.  Elated  by  this  success, 
and  deeming  the  town  an  easy  prey,  the  Eng 
lish  marched  joyously  to  occupy  it.  But  be 
hold  !  the  women  had  closed  the  gates  and 
barriers,  mounted  the  battlements,  and  were 
ready  to  defend  themselves  against  all  comers. 
Their  men  might  be  foolish  enough  to  fall  into 
the  enemy's  snares,  but  they  would  look  after 
their  homes.  Sir  Thomas,  like  the  gallant 
Englishman  he  was,  refused  to  make  tho 
attack.  "  See  these  good  women,"  he  said, 
"  standing  like  wolf-dogs  on  their  walls.  Let 


20  .  VARIA. 

us  turn  back,   and   God   grant  our   English 
wives  to  be  as  brave  in  battle." 

The  ludicrous  side  of  female  belligerency 
has  seldom  been  lacking  in  history.  It  is 
admirably  illustrated  by  the  story,  at  once  ab 
surd  and  tragic,  of  the  unfortunate  William 
Scott  of  Harden,  whose  wife,  an  aggressively 
pious  woman,  insisted  on  attending  the  for* 
hidden  meetings  of  the  Covenanters.  Scott 
was  culled  before  the  Council,  and  told  to 
keep  his  lady  at  home.  He  answered,  frankly 
and  sadly,  that  he  could  not.  The  Council, 
arguing  after  the  fashion  of  the  Queen  in 
•"  Alice  in  Wonderland,"  insisted  that  if  he 
had  a  wife  he  could  oblige  her  to  obey  him, 
and  dismissed  him  with  a  serious  warning.  Off 
to  the  Eildon  Hills  went  Madam  Scott,  and 
prayed  as  hard  as  ever.  Her  husband  re 
ceived  a  second  summons  from  the  Council, 
and  was  lined  a  thousand  pounds  for  her  obsti 
nate  recusancy.  Madam  Scott,  who  now  oc 
cupied  the  proud  yet  comfortable  position  of 
a  martyr  for  the  faith  whose  sufferings  were 
borne  vicariously  by  another,  clung  more  in 
sistently  than  before  to  her  religious  rights. 
Scott  was  lined  another  thousand  pounds. 


THE   ETERNAL   FEMINIZE.  27 

Madam  Scott  merely  denounced  the  persecu 
tors  of  the  righteous  with  redoubled  vehe 
mence  at  the  next  gathering  of  the  elect.  The 
luckless  man  was  then  actually  imprisoned  in 
the  Bass  Fortress,  where  he  remained  three 
years,  while  his  triumphant  spouse,  secure 
from  molestation,  trod  her  saintly  path,  and 
prayed  whenever  and  wherever  she  desired. 
The  revolting  wife  is  not  invariably  a  thing 
of  beauty,  hut  it  is  hard  to  sec  how  she 
could  carry  her  spirit  of  independence  any 
farther. 

For  indeed  all  that  we  think  so  new  to-day 
has  been  acted  over  and  over  again,  a  shifting 
comedy,  by  the  women  of  every  century.  All 
that  we  value  as  well  as  all  that  we  condemn 
in  womanhood  has  played  its  part  for  good 
and  for  evil  in  the  history  of  mankind.  .To 
talk  about  either  sex  as  a  solid  embodiment  of 
reform  is  as  unmeaning  as  to  talk  about  it  as 
a  solid  embodiment  of  demoralization.  If  the 
mandrake  be  charmed  by  a  woman's  touch,  as 
Josephus  tells  us,  the  rue,  says  Pliny,  dies 
beneath  her  fingers.  She  has  made  and 
marred  from  the  beginning,  she  will  make  and 
mar  to  the  end.  The  best  and  newest  daugh- 


28  VARJA. 

ter  of  this  restless  generation  may  well  read 
envyingly  Sain  to  Bcuve's  brief  description  of 
Mine,  de  Sevigne,  a  picture  drawn  with  a  few 
strokes,  clear,  delicate,  and  convincing.  "  She 
hud  a  genius  for  conversation  and  society,  a 
knowledge  of  the  world  and  of  men,  a  lively 
and  acute  appreciation  both  of  the  becom 
ing  and  the  absurd."  Such  women  make 
the  world  a  pleasant  place  to  live  in  ;  and, 
to  the  persuasive  qualities  which  win  their 
way  through  adamantine  resistance,  Mine,  de 
Sevigne  added  that  talent  for  affairs  which 
is  the  birthright  of  her  race,  that  talent  for 
affairs  which  we  value  so  highly  to-day,  and 
the  broader  cultivation  of  which  is  perhaps 
the  only  form  of  newness  worth  its  name. 
Since  Adam  delved  and  Eve  span,  life  for  all 
of  us  has  been  full  of  labor ;  but  as  the  sons 
of  Adam  no  longer  exclusively  delve,  so  the 
daughters  of  Eve  no  longer  exclusively  spin. 
In  fact,  delving  and  spinning,  though  admir 
able  occupations,  do  not  represent  the  sum 
total  of  earthly  needs.  There  are  so  many, 
many  other  useful  things  to  do,  and  women's 
eager  finger-tips  burn  to  essay  them  all. 


THE   ETERNAL   FEMININE.  29 

"  Cora  's  riding,  and  Lilian  's  rowing, 

Celia's  novels  are  books  ono  buys, 
Julia  'a  lecturing,  Phillis  is  mowing, 

Sue  is  a  dealer  in  oils  and  dyes  ; 
Flora  and  Dora  poetize, 

Jane  is  a  bore,  and  Bee  is  a  blue, 
Sylvia  lives  to  anatomize, 

Nothing  is  left  for  the  men  to  do.'* 

The  laugh  lias  a  malicious  ring,  yet  it  is  good- 
tempered  too,  as  though  Mr.  Henley  were  not 
sufficiently  enamoured  of  work  to  care  a  great 
deal  who  does  it  in  his  place.  Even  the 
plaintive  envoy  is  less  heart-rending  than  he 
would  have  it  sound,  and  in  its  familiar  bur 
den  we  catcli  an  old-time  murmur  of  forgotten 
things. 

"  Prince,  our  past  in  the  dust  -limp  lies ! 

Saving  to  scrub,  to  bake,  to  brew. 

Nurse,  dress,  prattle,  and  scandalize, 

Nothing  is  left  for  the  men  to  do." 


THE  DEATHLESS   DIARY. 

FOUR  ways  there  are  of  telling  a  curious 
world  that  endless  story  of  the  past  which  it 
is  never  tired  of  hearing.  History,  memoir, 
biography,  and  the  diary  run  back  like  four 
smooth  roads,  connecting  our  century,  our  land, 
our  life,  with  other  centuries  and  lands  and 
lives  that  have  all  served  in  turn  to  make  us 
what  we  arc.  Of  these  four  roads,  I  like  the 
narrowest  best.  History  is  both  partial  and 
prejudiced,  sinning  through  lack  of  sympathy 
;is  well  as  through  lack  of  truth.  Memoirs 
arc  too  often  false  and  malicious.  Biographies 
are  misleading  in  their  flattery :  there  is  but 
one  Boswell.  Diaries  tell  their  little  tales  with 
a  directness,  a  candor,  conscious  or  uncon 
scious,  a  closeness  of  outlook,  which  gratifies 
our  sense  of  security.  Heading  them  is  like 
gazing  through  a  small  clear  pane  of  glass. 
We  may  not  see  far  and  wide,  but  we  see  very 
distinctly  that  which  comes  within  our  field  of 
vision. 


THE   DEATHLESS   DIARY.  31 

111  those  happy  days  when  leisure  was  held 
to  be  no  sin,  men  and  women  wrote  journals 
whose  copiousness  both  delights  and  dismay 8 
us.  Neither  "  eternal  youth  "  nor  "  nothing 
else  to  do  "  seems  an  adequate  foundation  for 
such  structures.  They  were  considered  then 
a  profitable  waste  of  time,  and  children  wore 
encouraged  to  write  down  in  little  books  the 
little  experiences  of  their  little  lives.  Thus 
we  have  the  few  priceless  pages  which  tell 
"  pet  Marjorie's "  story ;  the  incomparable 
description  of  Ilelene  Massalski's  schooldays 
at  the  Abbaye  do  Notre  Dame  aux  Hois;  the 
dcmuro  vivacity  of  Anna  (Jrecn  Wiuslow  ;  the 
lively,  petulant  records  of  Louisa  and  Richcmla 
(Jurney;  the  amusing  experiences  of  that  re 
markable  and  delightful  urchin,  Richard  Doyle. 
These  youthful  diaries,  whether  brief  or  pro 
tracted,  have  a  twofold  charm,  revealing  as 
they  do  both  child-life  and  the  child  itself.  It 
is  pleasant  to  think  that  one  of  the  little  Gur- 
neys,  who  were  all  destined  to  grow  into  such 
relentlessly  pious  women  that  their  adult  let 
ters  exclude  the  human  element  absolutely  in 
favor  of  spiritual  admonitions,  was  capable, 
when  she  was  young,  of  such  a  defiant  scnti- 


32  VARIA. 

incnt  as  this :  "  I  read  half  a  Quaker's  book 
through  with  my  father  before  meeting.  I 
tun  quite  sorry  to  see  him  grow  so  Quakerly." 
Or,  worse  and  worse :  "  We  went  on  the  high 
way  this  afternoon  for  the  purpose  of  being 
rude  to  the  folks  that  passed.  I  do  think 
being  rude  is  most  pleasant  sometimes." 

Of  course  she  did,  poor  little  over-trained, 
over-disciplined  Kichenda,  and  her  open  con 
fession  of  iniquity  contrasts  agreeably  with  the 
anxious  assurance  given  by  Anna  Winslow  to 
her  mother  that  there  had  been  "  no  rudeness, 
Mamma,  I  assure  you,"  at  her  evening  party. 
Naturally,  a  diary  written  by  a  little  girl  for 
the  scrutiny  and  approbation  of  her  parents 
is  a  very  different  thing  from  a  diary  written 
by  a  little  girl  for  her  own  solace  and  diver 
sion.  The  New  England  child  is  always  sedate 
and  prim,  mindful  that  she  is  twelve  years  old, 
and  that  she  is  expected  to  live  up  to  a  "rather 
rigorous  standard  of  propriety.  She  would  no 
more  dream  of  going  into  the  highway  "  for 
the  purpose  of  being  rude  to  the  folks  that 
passed "  than  she  would  dream  of  romping 
with  boys  in  those  decorous  Boston  streets 
where,  as  Mr.  Birrell  pleasantly  puts  it,  "  re- 


THE  DEATHLESS  DIARY.  33 

spectability  stalked  unchecked."  Neither  does 
she  consider  her  diary  a  vent  for  naughty 
humors.  She  fills  it  with  a  faithful  account 
of  her  daily  occupations  and  amusements,  and 
we  learn  from  her  how  much  wine  and  punch 
little  New  England  girls  were  allowed  to  drink 
a  hundred  years  ago ;  how  they  danced  live 
hours  on  an  unsustaining  supper  of  cakes 
and  raisins ;  how  they  sewed  more  than  they 
studied,  and  studied  more  than  they  played ; 
and  what  wondrous  clothes  they  wore  when 
they  were  permitted  to  be  seen  in  company. 

"  I  was  dressed  in  my  yelloe  coat  black  bib 
and  apron,"  writes  Anna  in  an  unpunctuated 
transport  of  pride,  "  black  feathers  on  my 
head,  my  paste  comb  and  all  my  paste  garnet 
marquasett  and  jet  pins,  together  witli  my 
silver  plume,  my  locket,  rings,  black  collar 
round  my  neck,  black  mitts  and  yards  of  blue 
ribbon  (black  and  blue  is  high  taste)  striped 
tucker  and  nifties  (not  my  best)  and  my  silk 
shoes  completed  my  dress." 

And  none  too  soon,  thinks  the  astonished 
reader,  who  fancied  in  his  ignorance  that 
little  girls  were  plainly  clad  in  those  fine  old 
days  of  simplicity.  Neither  Marie  Bashkirtseff 


34  VARIA. 

nor  Ilelene  Massalski  cared  more  about  frip 
pery  than  did  this  small  Puritan  maid.  In 
deed,  IlelOne,  after  one  passionate  outburst, 
resigned  herself  with  great  good  humor  to  the 
convent  uniform,  and  turned  her  alert  young 
mind  to  other  interests  and  pastimes.  If  the 
authenticity  of  her  childish  copy-books  can  be 
placed  beyond  dispute,  no  youthful  record 
rivals  them  in  vivacity  and  grace.  It  was  the 
fashion  among  the  older  pensionnalrea  of 
Notre  Dame  aux  Bois  to  keep  elaborate  jour 
nals,  and  the  little  Polish  princess,  though  she 
tells  us  that  she  wrote  so  badly  as  to  be  in 
perpetual  penance  for  her  disgraceful  "tops 
and  tails,"  scribbled  away  page  after  page  with 
reckless  sincerity  and  spirit.  She  is  so  frank 
and  gay,  so  utterly  free  from  pretense  of  any 
kind,  that  Knglish  readers,  or  at  least  English 
re  viewers,  appear  to  have  been  somewhat  scan 
dalized  by  her  candor;  and  these  innocent  rev 
elations  have  been  made  the  subject  of  serious 
diatribes  against  convent  schools,  which,  it 
need  hardly  be  said,  have  altered  radically  in 
the  past  century,  and  were,  at  their  worst, 
better  than  any  home  training  possible  in 
Ih'lene  Mussalski's  day.  And  what  fervor 


THE    I) EAT 11 LESS   DIARY.  35 

and  charm  in  her  affectionate  description  of 
that  wise  and  witty,  that  kind  and  good  nun, 
Madame  de  Rochechouart !  What  freedom 
throughout  from  the  morbid  and  unchildish 
vanity  of  Marie  Bashkirtseff,  whose  diary  is 
simply  a  vent  for  her"  own  exhaustlcss  egotism! 
There  must  always  be  some  moments  in  life 
when  it  becomes  impossible  for  us,  however 
self-centred,  to  intrude  our  personalities  fur 
ther  upon  our  rebellious  families  and  friends. 
There  must  come  a  time  when  nobody  will 
think  of  us,  nor  look  at  us,  nor  listen  to  us 
another  minute.  Then  how  welcome  is  the 
poor  little  journal  which  cannot  refuse  our 
confidences !  What  Rousseau  did  on  a  large 
scale,  Marie  Bashkirtseff  copied  on  a  smaller 
one.  Both  made  tho  world  their  father  con- 
fessor,  and  the  world  has  listened  with  a  good 
deal  of  attention  to  their  talcs,  partly  from  an 
unquenchable  interest  in  unhealthy  souls,  and 
partly  from  sheer  self-complacency  and  pride. 
There  is  nothing  more  gratifying  to  human 
nature  than  the  opportunity  of  contrasting  our 
own  mental  and  spiritual  soundness  with  the 
disease  which  cries  aloud  to  us  for  scrutiny. 
If  the  best  diaries  known  in  literature  have 


.%  V  A  It  I  A. 

been  written  by  men,  the  greater  number  have 
been  the  work  of  women.  Even  little  girls, 
as  we  have  seen,  have  taken  kindly  enough 
to  the  daily  task  of  translating  themselves 
into  pages  of  pen  and  ink  ;  but  little  boys 
have  been  wont  to  consider  this  a  lament 
able  waste  of  time.  It  is  true  we  have  such 
painful  and  precocious  records  as  that  of  young 
Nathaniel  Mather,  who  happily  died  before 
reaching  manhood,  but  not  before  he  had 
scaled  the  heights  of  self-esteem,  and  sounded 
the  depths  of  despair.  When  a  boy,  a  real 
human  boy,  laments  and  bewails  in  his  journal 
that  he  whittled  a  stick  upon  the  Sabbath 
Day,  "  and,  for  fear  of  being  seen,  did  it  be 
hind  the  door,  —  a  great  reproach  of  Gou,  and 
a  specimen  of  that  atheism  1  brought  into  the 
world  with  me,'1  —  we  recognize  the  fearful 
possibilities  of  uu tempered  sanctimony.  Boy 
hood,  thank  Heaven, does  not  lend  itself  easily 
to  introspection,  and  seldom  lintls  leisure  for 
remorse.  As  a  rule,  a  lad  commits  himself  to 
a  diary,  as  to  any  other  piece  of  work,  only 
because  it  has  been  forced  upon  him  by  the 
voice  of  authority.  It  was  the  parental  man 
date,  thinly  disguised  under  parental  counsel, 


THE    DEATHLESS   DIARY.  o7 

which  started  young  Dick  Doyle  on  that  de 
lightful  journal  in  which  spirited  sketches 
alternate  with  unrcgenerate  adventures  and 
mishaps.  lie  begins  it  with  palpable  reluc 
tance  the  first  day  of  January,  1840 ;  fears 
modestly  that  it  "  will  turn  out  a  hash  ;"  hopes 
he  may  be  "  skinned  alive  by  wildcats  "  if  he 
fails  to  persevere  with  it ;  draws  an  animated 
picture  of  himself  in  a  torn  tunic  running 
away  from  seven  of  these  malignant  animals 
that  pursue  him  over  tables  and  chairs ;  and 
filially  settles  down  soberly  and  cheerfully  to 
work.  The  entries  grow  longer  and  longer, 
the  drawings  more  and  more  elaborate,  as  the 
diary  proceeds.  A  great  deal  happened  in 
1840,  and  every  event  is  chronicled  witli  fidel 
ity.  The  queen  is  married  in  the  beginning 
of  the  year ;  a  princess  royal  is  born  before 
its  close.  "  Hurra !  Hurra !  "  cries  loyal  Dick. 
Prince  Louis  Napoleon  makes  his  famous  de 
scent  upon  Houlogno,  and  Dick  sketches  him 
sailing  dismally  away  on  a  life-buoy.  Above 
all,  the  young  artist  scores  his  first  success, 
and  the  glory  of  having  one  of  his  drawings 
actually  lithographed  and  sold  is  more  than  he 
can  boar  with  sobriety.  "Just  imagine,"  he 


38  VARIA. 

writes,  "if  I  was  walking  coolly  along,  and 
came  upon  the  Tournament  in  a  shop  window. 
Oh,  cricky !  it  would  be  enough  to  turn  me 
inside  out." 

He  survives  this  joyous  ordeal,  however, 
and  toils  gayly  on  until  the  year  is  almost 
up  and  the  appointed  task  completed.  On 
the  3d  of  December  a  serious-minded  uncle 
invites  him  to  go  to  Exeter  Hall,  an  enter 
tainment  which  the  other  children  flatly  and 
wisely  decline.  What  he  heard  in  that  abode 
of  dismal  oratory  we  shall  never  know,  for, 
stopping  abruptly  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence, 
—  "  Uncle  was  going  somewhere  else  first,  and 
had  started,"  —  Kichard  Doyle's  diary  comes 
to  an  untimely  end. 

And  tliis  is  the  fate  of  all  those  personal 
records  which  have  most  deeply  interested  and 
charmed  us.  It  is  so  easy  to  begin  a  journal, 
so  difficult  to  continue  it,  so  impossible  to 
persevere  with  it  to  the  end.  Bacon  says  that 
the  only  time  a  man  finds  leisure  for  such  an 
engrossing  occupation  is  when  he  is  on  a  sea 
voyage,  and  naturally  has  nothing  to  write 
about.  Perhaps  the  reason  why  diaries  are 
ever  short-lived  may  be  found  in  the  undue 


THE   DEATHLESS  DIARY.  39 

ardor  with  which  they  arc  set  agoing.  Man 
is  sadly  diffuse  and  lamentably  unstable.  lie* 
ends  by  saying  nothing  because  he  begins  by 
leaving  nothing  unsaid.  "  Le  secret  d'ennuycr 
est  de  tout  dire."  llnydon,  the  painter,  it  is 
true,  filled  twenty-seven  volumes  with  the 
melancholy  record  of  his  high  hopes  and  bitter 
disappointments ;  but  then  he  did  everything 
and  failed  in  everything  on  the  same  gigantic 
scale.  The  early  diary  of  Frances  Burney  is 
monumental.  Its  young  writer  finds  life  so 
full  of  enjoyment  that  nothing  seems  to  her 
too  insignificant  to  be  narrated.  Long  and 
by  no  means  lively  conversations,  that  must 
have  taken  whole  hours  to  write,  are  minutely 
and  faithfully  transcribed.  She  reads  "The 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  and  at  once  sits  down 
and  tells  us  all  she  thinks  about  it.  Her  praise 
is  guarded  and  somewhat  patronizing,  as  belits 
the  author  of  "  Evelina."  She  is  sorely  scan 
dalized  by  Dr.  Primrose's  verdict  that  mur 
der  should  be  the  sole  crime  punishable  by 
death,  and  proceeds  to  show,  at  great  length 
and  with  pious  indignation,  how  "  this  doctrine 
might  be  contradicted  from  the  very  essence 
of  our  religion,"  —  quoting  Exodus  in  defense 


JO  VARIA. 

of  her  orthodoxy.  She  is  charmingly  frank 
and  outspoken,  and  these  youthful  pages  show 
no  trace  of  that  curious,  half-conscious  plead 
ing  with  which  she  strives,  in  later  days,  to 
make  posterity  her  confidant ;  to  pour  into 
the  ears  of  future  partisans  like  Macaulay  her 
side  of  the  court  story,  with  all  its  indignities 
and  honors,  its  hours  of  painful  ennui,  its 
minutes  of  rapturous  delight. 

That  Macaulay  should  have  worked  himself 
up  into  a  frenzy  of  indignation  over  Miss 
Burney's  five  years  at  court  is  an  amusing 
instance  of  his  unalterable  point  of  view. 
The  sacred  and  exalted  profession  of  letters 
had  in  him  its  true  believer  and  devotee. 
That  kings  and  queens  and  princesses  should 
fail  to  share  this  deference,  that  they  should 
arrogantly  assume  the  privileges  of  their  rank 
when  brought  into  contact  with  a  successful 
novelist,  was  to  him  an  incredible  example  of 
barbaric  stupidity.  The  spectacle  of  Queen 
Charlotte  placidly  permitting  the  authoress 
of  u  Cecilia  "  to  assist  at  the  royal  toilet  filled 
him  with  grief  and  anger.  It  is  but  too  ap 
parent  that  no  sense  of  intellectual  unworthi- 
ncss  troubled  her  Majesty  for  a  moment,  and 


THE   DEATHLESS   I)  I  Alt  Y.  41 

tins  shameless  serenity  of  spirit  was  more 
than  the  great  Whig  historian  could  endure. 
To  less  ardent  minds  it  would  seem  that  five 
years  of  honorable  and  well-paid  service  were 
amply  rewarded  by  a  pension  for  life ;  and 
that  Miss  Burney,  however  hard-worked  and 
overdriven,  must  have  had  long,  long  hours 
of  leisure  in  which  to  write  tho  endless  pages 
of  her  journal.  Indeed,  a  woman  who  had 
time  to  listen  to  Fox  speaking  "  with  violence  " 
for  five  hours,  had  time,  one  would  imagine, 
for  anything.  Then  what  delicious  excita 
tion  to  sit  blushing  and  smiling  in  the  royal 
box,  and  hear  Miss  Farren  recite  these  in 
toxicating  lines ! 

"  Lt't  sweet  Cecilia  pain  your  just  applause, 
Whoso  every  passion  yields  to  nature's  laws." 

And  as  if  this  were  not  enough,  the  king,  the 
queen,  the  royal  princesses,  all  turn  their 
heads  and  gaze  at  her  for  one  distracting 
moment.  "  To  describe  my  embarrassment," 
she  falters,  "  would  be  impossible.  I  shrunk 
back,  so  astonished,  and  so  ashamed  of  my 
public  situation,  that  I  was  almost  ready  to 
take  to  my  heels  and  run  away." 


'12  V  All  I  A. 

Well,  well,  tho  (lays  for  such  delights  arc 
over.  We  may  say  what  we  pleaso  about  the 
rewards  of  modern  novel-writing ;  but  what, 
after  all,  is  the  cold  praise  of  reviewers  com 
pared  with  this  open  glory  and  exaltation? 
It  is  moderately  impressive  to  be  told  over 
and  over  again  by  Marie  Corelli's  American 
publishers  that  the  queen  of  England  thinks 
"  The  Soul  of  Lilith  "  and  "  The  Sorrows  of 
Satan "  are  good  novels ;  but  this  mere  an 
nouncement,  however  reassuring,  —  and  it  is 
a  point  on  which  we  require  a  good  deal  of 
reassurance,  -  -  docs  not  thrill  us  with  the 
enthusiasm  we  should  feel  if  her  Majesty,  and 
the  Prince  of  Wales,  and  the  Duke  of  York, 
and  the  British  public  united  in  a.  flattering 
ovation.  The  incidents  which  mark  the  irre 
sistible  and  unwelcome  changes  forced  upon 
the  world  by  each  successive  generation  which 
inhabits  it  are  the  incidents  we  love  to  read 
about,  and  which  are  generally  considered  too 
insignificant  for  narration.  In  a  single  page 
Addison  tells  us  more  concerning  the  friv 
olous,  idle,  half  torpid,  wholly  contented  life 
of  an  eighteenth-century  citizen  than  we  could 
learn  from  a  dozen  histories.  His  diaries, 


TIIK    DEATHLESS   DIAKY.  43 

meant  to  be  purely  satiric,  have  now  become 
instructive.  They  show  us,  as  in  a  mirror,  the 
early  hours,  the  scanty  ablutions,  —  "  washed 
hands,  but  not  face,"  —  the  comfortable  eating 
and  drinking,  the  refreshing  absence  of  books, 
the  delightful  vagueness  and  uncertainty  of 
foreign  news.  A  man  could  interest  himself 
for  days  in  the  reported  strangling  of  the 
Grand  Vizier,  when  no  intrusive  cablegram 
came  speeding  over  the  wires  to  silence  and 
refute  the  pleasant  voice  of  rumor. 

It  is  this  wholesome  and  universal  love  of 
detail  which  lends  to  a  veracious  diary  its 
indestructible  charm.  Charlotte  Burney  has 
less  to  tell  us  than  her  famous  sister ;  but  it 
is  to  her,  after  all,  that  we  owe  our  knowledge 
of  Dr.  Johnson's  worsted  wig,  —  a  present,  it 
seems,  from  Mr.  Thrale,  and  especially  valued 
for  its  tendency  to  stay  in  curl  however  roughly 
used.  "  The  doctor  generally  diverts  himself 
with  lying  down  just  after  he  has  got  a  fresh 
wig  on,"  writes  Charlotte  gayly ;  and  this 
habit,  it  must  be  admitted,  is  death  and  de 
struction  to  less  enduring  perukes.  Swift's 
Journal  to  Stella  —  a  true  diary,  though  cast 
in  the  form  of  correspondence  —  shows  us 


44  VAMA. 

not  only  the  playful,  tender,  and  caressing 
moods  of  the  most  savage  of  English  cynies, 
but  also  enlightens  us  amazingly  as  to  his 
daily  habits  and  economies.  We  learn  from 
his  own  pen  how  he  bought  his  fuel  by  the 
half-bushel,  and  would  have  been  glad  to  buy 
it  by  the  pound  ;  how  his  servant,  "  that  ex 
travagant  whelp  Peter,"  insisted  on  making  a 
lire  for  him,  and  necessitated  his  picking  off 
the  coals  one  by  one,  before  going  to  bed  ;  how 
he  drank  brandy  every  morning,  and  took  his 
pill  as  regularly  as  Mrs.  Pullet  every  night ; 
and  how  Stella's  mother  sent  him  as  gifts  "a 
parcel  of  wax  candles  and  a  bandbox  full  of 
small  plum-cakes,"  on  which  plum-cakes — oh, 
miracle  of  sound  digestion! — he  breakfasted 
serenely  for  a  fortnight. 

Now,  the  spectacle  of  Dr.  Swift  eating 
plum-cakes  in  the  early  morning  is  like  the 
spectacle  of  Mr.  Pepys  dining  with  far  less 
inward  satisfaction  at  his  cousin's  table,  where 
"  the  venison  pasty  was  palpable  beef."  The 
most  remarkable  diary  in  the  world  is  rich  in 
the  insignificance  of  its  details.  It  is  the 

O 

sole  confidant  of  a  .man  who,  as  Mr.  Lang 
admirably  says,  was  his  own  Bos  well,  and  its 


THE   DEATHLESS   DIARY.  45 

ruthless  sincerity  throws  the  truth-telling  of 
the  great  biographer  into  the  shade.  Were  it 
not  for  this  strange  cipher  record,  ten  years 
long,  the  world  —  or  that  small  portion  of  it 
which  reads  history  unabridged  —  would  know 
Mr.  Samuel  Pepys,  secretary  to  the  Admi 
ralty,  as  an  excellent  public  servant,  loyal,  cap 
able,  and  discreet.  The  bigger,  lazier  world, 
to  which  he  is  now  a  figure  so  familiar,  would 
never  have  heard  of  him  at  all,  thereby  losing 
the  most  vivid  bit  of  human  portraiture  ever 
given  for  our  disedification  and  delight. 

We  can  understand  how  Mr.  Pepys  found 
time  to  write  his  diary  when  we  remember 
that  he  was  commonly  in  his  office  by  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  We  can  appreciate 
its  wonderful  candor  when  we  realize  how  safe 
he  thought  it  from  investigation.  With  the 
reproaches  of  his  own  conscience  he  was  prob 
ably  familiar,  and  the  crowning  cowardice  of 
self-told  lies  offered  no  temptation  to  him. 
"  Why  should  we  seek  to  be  deceived  ?  "  asks 
Bishop  Butler,  and  Mr.  Pepys  might  have 
answered  truthfully  that  he  did  n't.  The  ro 
mantic  shading,  the  flimsy  and  false  excuses 
with  which  we  arc  wont  to  color  our  inmost 


40  VARIA. 

thoughts,  have  no  place  in  this  extraordinary 
chronicle.  Its  writer  neither  deludes  himself, 
like  Bunyan,  nor  holsters  up  his  soul,  like 
Rousseau,  with  swelling  and  insidious  pre 
tenses.  It  is  a  true  "Human  Document,"  full 
of  meanness  and  kindness,  of  palpable  virtues 
and  substantial  misdemeanors.  Mr.  Pepys 
is  unkind  to  his  wife,  yet  he  loves  her.  He 
is  selfish  and  ostentatious,  yet  he  denies  him 
self  the  coveted  glory  of  a  coach  and  pair  to 
give  a  marriage  portion  to  his  sister.  He 
seeks  openly  his  own  profit  and  gratification, 
yet  he  is  never  without  an  active  interest  in 
the  lives  and  needs  of  other  people.  Indeed, 
so  keen  and  so  sensible  are  his  solutions  of 
social  problems,  or  what  passed  for  such  in 
that  easy  age,  that  had  philanthropy  and  its 
rewards  been  invented  in  the  reign  of  Charles 
II.  we  should  doubtless  see  standing  now  in 
London  streets  a  statue  of  Mr.  Samuel  Pepys, 
prison  reformer,  and  founder  of  benevolent 
institutions  for  improving1  and  harrowing  the 
poor. 

If  the  principal  interest  of  this  famous  diary 
lies  in  its  unflinching  revelation  of  character, 
a  charm  no  less  enduring  may  be  found  in  all 


THE   DEATHLESS   DIARY.  47 

the  daily  incidents  it  narrates.  We  like  to 
know  how  a  citizen  of  London  lived  two  hun 
dred  years  ago:  what  clothes  ho  wore,  what 
food  he  ate,  what  books  he  read,  what  plays 
he  heard,  what  work  and  pleasure  filled  his 
waking  hours.  And  I  would  gently  suggest 
to  those  who  hunger  and  thirst  after  the 
glories  of  the  printed  page  that  if  they  will 
only  consent  to  write  for  posterity,  —  not  as 
the  poets  say  they  do,  and  do  not,  but  as  the 
diarist  really  and  truly  docs,  —  posterity  will 
take  them  to  its  heart  and  cherish  them. 
They  may  have  nothing  to  say  which  anybody 
wants  to  listen  to  now ;  but  let  them  jot  down 
truthfully  the  petty  occurrences,  the  pleasant 
details  of  town  or  country  life,  and,  as  surely 
as  the  world  lasts,  they  will  one  day  have  a 
hearing.  We  live  in  a  strange  period  of  tran 
sition.  Never  before  has  the  old  order 
changed  as  rapidly  as  it  is  changing  now.  O 
writers  of  dull  verse  and  duller  prose,  quit  the 
well-worked  field  of  fiction,  the  arid  waste  of 
sonnets  and  sad  poems,  and  chronicle  in  little 
leather-covered  books  the  incidents  which  tell 
their  wondrous  tale  of  resistless  and  inevi 
table  change.  Write  of  electric  motors,  of 


48  VAllIA. 

bicycles,  of  peace  societies,  of  hospitals  for 
pussy  cats,  of  women's  clubs  and  colleges,  of 
the  price  of  food  and  house  rent,  of  hotel  bills, 
of  new  fashions  in  dress  and  furniture,  of  gay 
dinners,  of  extension  lectures,  of  municipal 
corruption  and  reform,  of  robberies  unpun 
ished,  of  murders  unavenged.  These  things 
do  not  interest  us  profoundly  now,  being  part 
of  our  daily  surroundings  ;  but  the  genera 
tions  that  are  to  come  will  read  of  them  with 
mingled  envy  and  derision  :  envy  because  we 
have  done  so  little,  derision  because  we  think 
that  we  have  done  so  much. 

If,  then,  it  is  as  natural  for  mankind  to 
peer  into  the  past  as  to  speculate  upon  the 
future,  where  shall  we  find  such  windows  for 
our  observation  as  in  the  diaries  which  show 
us  day  by  day  the  shifting  current  of  what 
once  was  life?  We  can  learn  from  histories 
all  we  want  to  know  about  the  great  fire  of 
London ;  but  to  realize  just  how  people  felt 
and  behaved  in  that  terrible  emergency  we 
should  watch  the  alert  and  alarmed  Mr.  Pepys 
burying  not  only  his  money  and  plate,  but  his 
wine  and  Parmesan  cheese.  We  have  been 
taught  at  school  much  more  than  we  ever 


THE   DEATHLESS   DIARY.  49 

wanted  to  know  about  Cromwell,  and  the  Pro 
tectorate,  and  Puritan  England  ;  yet  to  breathe 
again  that  dismal  and  decorous  air  we  must 
go  to  church  with  John  Evelyn,  and  see,  in 
stead  of  the  expected  rector,  a  sour-faced 
tradesman  mount  the  pulpit,  and  preach  for 
an  hour  on  the  inspiriting  text,  "  And  Benaiah 
.  .  .  went  down  also  ami  slew  a  lion  in  the 
midst  of  a  pit  in  time  of  snow."  The  pious 
and  accomplished  Mr.  Evelyn  does  not  fancy 
this  strange  innovation.  Like  other  conserva 
tive  English  gentlemen,  lie  has  little  leaning 
to  "  novices  and  novelties  "  in  the  house  of 
God  ;  and  he  is  even  less  pleased  when  all 
the  churches  arc  closed  on  Christmas  Day,  and 
a  Puritan  magistrate  speaks,  in  his  hearing, 
"  spiteful  things  of  our  Lord's  Nativity."  His 
horror  at  King  Charles's  execution  is  never 
mitigated  by  any  of  the  successive  changes 
which  followed  that  dark  deed.  He  is  repelled 
in  turn  by  the  tyranny  of  Cromwell,  the  dis 
soluteness  of  Charles  II.,  the  Catholicity  of 
James,  and  the  heartlessness  of  Queen  Mary, 
"  who  came  to  Whitehall  jolly  and  laughing 
as  to  a  wedding,"  without  even  a  decent  pre 
tense  of  pity  for  her  exiled  father.  lie  firmly 


50  VARIA. 

believes  in  witchcraft,  —  as  did  many  other 
learned  and  pious  men,  —  and  he  persists  in 
upsetting  all  our  notions  of  galley  slaves  and 
the  tragic  horror  of  their  lot  by  affirming  the 
miserable  creatures  at  Marseilles  to  be  "  cheer 
ful  and  full  of  knavery,"  and  hardly  ever 
without  some  triHing  occupation  at  which  they 
toiled  in  free  moments,  and  by  which  they 
made  a  little  money  for  the  luxuries  and  com 
forts  that  they  craved. 

In  fact,  an  air  of  sincere  and  inevitable 
truthfulness  robs  John  Evelyn's  diary  of  all 
that  is  romantic  and  sentimental.  We  s»-<5  in 
it  the  life  of  a  highly  cultivated  and  deeply 
religious  man,  whoso  fate  it  was  to  witness  all 
those  tremendous  and  sovereign  changes  which 
swept  over  Kngland  like  successive  tidal  waves 
between  the  execution  of  the  Earl  of  8 trillion! 
and  the  accession  of  Queen  Anne.  Sharp 
strife;  the  bitter  contention  of  creeds ;  Eng 
land's  one  plunge  into  republicanism,  and  her 
abrupt  withdrawal  from  its  grim  embraces  ; 
the  plague  ;  the  great  fire,  with  "  ten  thousand 
houses  all  in  one  flame ;  "  the  depth  of  na 
tional  corruption  under  the  last  Stuarts  ;  the 
obnoxious  and  unpalatable  remedy  adminis- 


THE    UK  ATI/LESS  DIARY.  51 

tercet  by  the  house  of  Orange  ;  the  dawning 
of  fresh  prosperity  and  of  a  new  literature,  — 
all  these  things  Mr.  Evelyn  saw,  and  noted 
with  many  comments  in  his  diary.  And  from 
all  we  turn  with-  something  like  relief  to  read 
about  the  lire-eater,  Richardson,  who  delighted 
London  by  cooking  an  oyster  on  a  red-hot  coal 
in  his  mouth,  or  drinking  molten  glass  as 
though  it  had  been  ale,  and  who  would  have 
made  the  fortune  of  any  modern  museum.  Or 
perhaps  we  pause  to  pity  the  sorrows  of  land 
lords,  always  an  ill-used  and  persecuted  race  ; 
for  Suyes  Court,  the  home  of  the  Evelyns, 
with  its  famous  old  trees  and  beautiful  gar- 
dons,  was  rented  for  several  years  to  Admiral 
Henbow,  who  sublet  it  in  the  summer  of  l(Ji)H 
to  Peter  the  Great,  and  the  royal  tenant  so 
trampled  down  and  destroyed  the  flower-beds 
that  no  vestige  of  their  loveliness  survived 
his  ruthless  tenancy.  The  Tsar,  like  Queen 
Elizabeth,  was  magnificent  when  viewed  from 
a  distance,  but  a  most  disturbing  element  to 
introduce  beneath  a  subject's  humble  roof. 

If  Defoe,  that  master  of  narrative,  had  writ 
ten  fewer  political  and  religious  tracts,  and 
had  kept  a  journal  of  his  eventf id  career,  what 


52  VARIA. 

welcome  and  admirable  reading  it  would  have 
made !  If  Lord  Ilervey  had  been  content  to 
tell  ns  less  about  government  measures,  and 
more  about  court  and  country  life,  liis  thick 
volumes  would  now  be  the  solace  of  many  an 
idle  hour.  So  keen  a  wit,  so  powerful  and 
graphic  a  touch,  have  never  been  wasted  upon 
mutters  of  evanescent  interest.  History  al 
ways  holds  its  share  of  the  world's  attention. 
The  charm  of  personal  gossip  has  never  been 
known  to  fail.  Hut  political  issues,  once  dead, 
make  dull  reading  for  all  but  students  of  po 
litical  economy;  and  they,  browsing  by  choice 
amid  arid  pastures,  scorn  nothing  so  much  as 
the  recreative.  Yet  Lord  Ilervey's  epigram 
matic  definition  of  the  two  great  parties,  pa 
triots  and  courtiers,  as  "  Whigs  out  of  place 
and  Whigs  in  place,"  shows  how  vital  and 
long-lived  is  humor;  and  the  trenchant  cyni 
cism  of  his  unkind  pleasantry  is  more  easily 
disparaged  than  forgotten. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  can  never  be  suffi 
ciently  grateful  that  Gouverncur  Morris,  in 
stead  of  writing  industrious  pamphlets  on  the 
causes  that  led  to  the  French  Revolution,  has 
left  us  his  delightful  diary,  with  its  vivid  pic- 


THE    DEATHLESS   DIARY.  53 

ture  of  social  life  and  of  the  great  storm-cloud 
darkening  over  France.  In  his  pages  we  can 
breathe  freely,  unchoked  by  that  lurid  and 
sulphuric  atmosphere  so  popular  with  histori 
ans  and  novelists  rehearsing  "  on  the  safe  side 
of  prophecy."  His  courage  is  of  the  unsenti 
mental  order,  his  perceptions  are  pitiless,  his 
common  sense  is  invulnerable,  lie  lias  the 
purest  contempt  for  the  effusive  oath-taking  of 
July  14,  the  purest  detestation  for  the  crimes 
and  cruelties  that  followed.  He  persistently 
treads  the  earth,  and  is  in  no  way  dazzled  by 
the  mad  flights  into  ether  which  were  so  hope 
lessly  characteristic  of  the  time.  Not  even  Sir 
Walter  Scott  —  a  man  as  unlike  Morris  as  day 
is  unlike  night  —  could  be  more  absolutely  free 
from  the  unwholesome  influences  which  threat 
ened  the  sanity  of  the  world,  and  of  Scott's 
journal  it  is  difficult  to  speak  with  self-posses 
sion.  Our  thanks  are  due  primarily  to  Lord 
Byron,  whose  Kavenna  diary  first  started  Sir 
Walter  on  this  daily  task,  —  a  task  which  grew 
heavier  when  the  sad  years  came,  but  which 
shows  us  now,  as  no  word  from  other  lips  or 
other  pen  could  ever  show  us,  the  splendid 
courage,  the  boundless  charity,  the  simple, 


54  VARIA. 

unconscious  goodness  of  the  man  whom  we 
may  approach  closer  and  closer,  and  only  love 
and  reverence  the  more.  Were  it  not  for  this 
journal,  we  should  never  have  known  Scott,  — 
never  have  known  how  sad  he  was  sometimes, 
how  tired,  how  discouraged,  how  clearly  aware 
of  his  own  fast-failing  powers.  We  should 
never  have  valued  at  its  real  worth  his  un 
quenchable  gayety  of  heart,  his  broad,  genial, 
reasonable  outlook  on  the  world.  His  letters, 
even  in  the  midst  of  trouble,  are  always  cheer 
ful,  as  the  letters  of  a  brave  man  should  be. 
His  diary  alone  tells  us  how  much  he  suffered 
at  the  downfall  of  hopes  and  ambitions  that 
had  grown  deeper  and  stronger  with  every 
year  of  life.  "  I  feel  my  dogs'  feet  on  my 
knees,  I  hear  them  whining  and  seeking  me 
everywhere,"  he  writes  pathetically,  when  the 
thought  of  Abbotsford,  closed  and  desolate, 
seems  more  than  he  can  bear ;  and  then,  obe 
dient  to  those  unselfish  instincts  which  had 
always  ruled  his  nature,  he  adds  with  nobler 
sorrow,  "  Poor  Will  Laidlaw!  poor  Tom  Pur- 
die!  This  will  be  news  to  wring  your  hearts, 
and  many  an  honest  fellow's  besides,  to  whom 
my  prosperity  was  daily  bread/' 


THE  DEATHLESS  DIARY.  55 

Of  all  the  journals  bequeathed  to  the  world, 
and  which  the  wise  world  has  guarded  with 
jealous  earc,  Sir  Walter's  makes  the  strongest 
appeal  to  honest  human  nature,  which  never 
goes  so  far  afield  in  its  search  after  strange 
gods  as  to  lose  its  love  for  what  is  simply 
and  sanely  good.  We  hear  a  great  deal  about 
the  nobler  standards  of  modernity,  and  about 
virtues  so  fine  and  rare  that  our  grandfathers 
knew  them  not ;  but  courage  and  gayety,  a 
pure  mind  and  a  kind  heart,  still  give  us  the 
assurance  of  a  man.  The  pleasant  duty  of 
admonishing  the  rich,  the  holy  joy  of  preach 
ing  a  crusade  against  other  people's  pleasures, 
arc  daily  gaining  favor  with  the  elect ;  but  to 
the  unrcgencrate  there  is  a  wholesome  flavor 
in  cheerful  enjoyment  no  less  than  in  open- 
handed  generosity. 

The  one  real  drawback  to  a  veracious  diary 
is  that  —  life  being  but  a  cloudy  tiling  at  best 
—  the  pages  which  toll  the  story  make  often 
melancholy  reading.  Mr.  Pepys  has,  perhaps, 
the  lightest  heart  of  the  fraternity,  and  we 
cannot  help  feeling  now  and  then  that  a  little 
more  regret  on  his  part  would  not  bo  wholly 
unbecoming.  However,  his  was  not  a  day 


56  VARIA. 

when  people  moped  in  corners  over  their  own 
or  their  neighbors'  shortcomings ;  and  there  is 
no  more  curious  contrast  offered  by  the  wide 
world  of  book-land  than  the  life  reflected  so 
faithfully  in  Pepys's  diary  and  in  the  sombre 
journal  of  Judge  Sewall.  New  England  is 
as  visible  in  the  one  book  as  is  Old  England 
in  the  other,  —  New  England  under  the  bleak 
sky  of  an  austere,  inexorable,  uncompromising 
Puritanism  which  dominated  every  incident 
of  life.  If  Mr.  Pepys  went  to  see  a  man 
hanged  at  Tyburn,  the  occasion  was  one  of 
some  jollity,  alike  for  crowd  and  for  criminal ; 
an  open-air  entertainment,  in  which  the  lead 
ing  actor  was  recompensed  iu  some  measure 
for  the  severity  of  his  part  by  the  excitement 
and  admiration  he  aroused.  But  when  Jud<»%e 

o 

Sewall  attended  the  execution  of  James  Mor 
gan,  the  unfortunate  prisoner  was  first  carried 
into  church,  and  prayed  over  lengthily  by  Cot 
ton  Mather  for  the  edification  of  the  congre 
gation,  who  came  in  such  numbers  and  pressed 
in  such  unruly  fashion  around  the  pulpit  that 
a  riot  took  place  within  the  holy  walls,  and 
Morgan  was  near  dying  of  suffocation  in  the 
dullest  possible  manner  without  the  gallows- 
tree. 


THE   DEATHLESS  DIARY.  57 

It  is  not  of  hangings  only  and  such  direful 
solemnities  that  wo  read  in  Sewall's  diary. 
Every  ordinary  duty  —  I  cannot  say  pastime 
—  of  life  is  faithfully  portrayed.  We  know 
the  faults  —  sins  they  were  considered  —  of  his 
fourteen  children ;  how  they  played  at  prayer- 
time  or  began  their  meals  before  grace  was 
said,  and  were  duly  whipped  for  such  trans 
gressions.  We  know  how  the  judge  went 
courting  when  past  middle  age ;  how  he  gave 
the  elderly  Mrs.  Winthrop  China  oranges,  su 
gared  almonds,  and  "  gingerbread  wrapped  in 
a  clean  sheet  of  paper,'*  and  how  he  ingratiated 
himself  into  her  esteem  by  hearing  her  grand 
children  recite  their  catechism.  He  has  a 
businesslike  method  of  putting  down  the  pre 
cise  cost  of  the  gifts  he  offered  during  the  pro 
gress  of  his  various  wooings  ;  for,  in  his  own 
serious  fashion,  this  gray -headed  Puritan  was 
one  of  the  most  amorous  of  men.  A  pair  of 
shoe-buckles  presented  to  one  fair  widow  came 
to  no  less  than  five  shillings  threepence ;  and 
"  Dr.  Mather's  sermons,  neatly  bound,"  was  a 
still  more  extravagant  cmlcan.  lie  was  also 
a  mighty  expounder  of  the  Scriptures,  and 
prayed  and  wrestled  with  the  sick  until  they 


58  VA1UA. 

were  fain  to  implore  him  to  desist.  There  is 
one  pathetic  story  of  a  dying  neighbor  to 
whose  bedside  he  hastened  with  two  other  aus 
tere  friends,  and  who  was  so  sorely  harried  by 
their  prolonged  exhortations  that,  with  his 
last  breath,  he  sobbed  out,  "  Let  me  alone ! 
my  spirits  are  gone  !  "  —  to  the  terrible  dis 
tress  and  scandal  of  his  wife. 

On  the  whole,  Judge  Scwall's  diary  is  not 
cheerful  reading,  but  the  grayness  of  its  at 
mosphere  is  mainly  due  to  the  unlovely  aspect 
of  colonial  life,  to  the  rigors  of  an  inclement 
climate  not  yet  subdued  by  the  forces  of  a 
luxurious  civilization,  and  by  a  too  constant 
consideration  of  the  probabilities  of  being 
eternally  damned.  There  is  nowhere  in  its 
sedate  and  troubled  pages  that  piercing  sad 
ness,  that  cry  of  enigmatic,  inexplicable  pain, 
which  shakes  the  very  centre  of  our  souls 
when  we  read  the  beautiful  short  journal  of 
Maurice  de  Gucrin.  These  few  pages,  written 
with  no  definite  purpose  by  a  young  man 
whose  life  was  uneventful  and  whose  genius 
never  flowered  into  maturity,  have  a  positive 
as  well  as  a  relative  value.  They  are  not 
merely  interesting  for  what  they  have  to  tell ; 


THE   DEATHLESS    DIARY.  59 

they  arc  admirable  for  the  manner  of  the  tell 
ing,  and  the  world  of  letters  would  bo  dis 
tinctly  poorer  for  their  loss.  Eugdnie  do 
Gucrin's  journal  is  charming,  but  its  merits 
are  of  a  different  order.  No  finer,  truer  pic 
ture  than  hers  lias  ever  been  given  us  of  that 
strange,  simple,  patriarchal  life  which  wo  can 
so  little  understand,  a  life  full  of  delicate 
thinking  and  homely  household  duties.  At 
Le  Cayla,  the  lonely  Languedoc  chateau, 
where  "  one  could  pass  days  without  seeing 
any  living  thing  but  the  sheep,  without  hear 
ing  any  living  thing  but  the  birds,"  the  young 
Frenchwoman  found  in  her  diary  companion 
ship  and  mental  stimulus,  a  link  to  bind  her 
day  by  day  to  her  absent  brother  for  whom 
she  wrote,  and  a  weapon  with  which  to  fight 
the  unconquerable  disquiet  of  her  heart.  Her 
finely  balanced  nature,  which  resisted  sorrow 
and  ennui  to  the  end,  forced  her  to  adopt  that 
precision  of  phrase  which  is  the  triumph  of 
French  prose.  There  is  a  tender  grace  in  her 
descriptions,  a  restraint  in  her  sweet,  sudden 
confidences,  a  wistfulncss  in  her  joy,  and  al 
ways  a  nobility  of  thought  which  makes  even 
her  gentleness  seem  austere. 


60  VAR1A. 

But  Maurice  dc  Guerin  had  in  him  a  power 
of  enjoyment  and  of  suffering  which  filled  his 
life  with  profound  emotions,  and  these  emo 
tions  break  like  waves  at  our  feet  when  wo 
read  the  brief  pages  of  his  diary.  There  is 
the  record  of  a  single  day  at  Le  Val,  so  brim 
ming  with  blessedness  and  beauty  that  it  illus 
trates  the  lasting  nature  of  pure  earthly  hap 
piness  ;  for  such  days  are  counted  out  like 
fairy  gold,  and  we  are  richer  all  our  lives  for 
having  grasped  them  once.  There  are  pas 
sages  of  power  and  subtlety  which  show  that 
nature  took  to  her  heart  this  trembling  seeker 
after  felicity,  cast  from  him  the  chains  of  care 
and  thought,  and  bade  him  taste  for  one  keen 
hour  "  the  noble  voluptuousness  of  freedom," 
Then,  breaking  swiftly  in  amid  vain  dreams  of 
joy,  comes  the  bitter  moment  of  awakening, 
and  the  sad  voice  of  humanity  sounds  wailing 
in  his  ears. 

"  My  God,  how  I  suffer  from  life !  Not 
from  its  accidents,  —  a  little  philosophy  suffices 
for  thorn,  —  but  from  itself,  from  its  substance, 
from  all  its  phenomena." 

And  ever  wearing  away  his  heart  is  the  rest 
lessness  of  a  nature  which  craved  beauty  for 


THE  DEATHLESS  DIARY.  61 

its  daily  food,  which  longed  passionately  for 
whatever  was  fairest  in  the  world,  for  the 
lands  and  the  seas  he  was  destined  never  to 
behold.  Eugenie,  in  her  solitude  at  Le  Cayla, 
trained  herself  to  echo  with  gentle  stoicism  the 
words  of  A  Kcmpis:  "What  canst  thou  see 
anywhere  that  thou  seest  not  here?  Behold 
the  heavens  and  the  earth  and  all  the  ele 
ments  !  For  out  of  these  are  all  things  made." 
Her  horizon  was  bounded  by  the  walls  of 
home.  She  worked,  she  prayed,  she  read  her 
few  books,  she  taught  the  peasant  children  the 
little  it  behooved  them  to  know ;  she  played 
with  the  gray  cat,  and  with  the  three  dogs, 
Lion,  Wolf,  and  little  Trilby  whom  she  loved 
best  of  all,  and  from  whom,  rather  than  from 
a  stupid  fairy  tale,  it  may  be  that  Du  Maurier 
stole  his  heroine's  name.  She  won  peace,  if 
not  contentment,  by  the  fulfillment  of  near 
duties ;  but  in  her  brother  the  unquenchable 
desire  of  travel  burned  like  a  smouldering  fire. 
In  dreams  he  wandered  far  amid  ancient  and 
sunlit  lands  whose  mighty  monuments  arc  part 
of  the  mysterious  legends  of  humanity.  "  The 
road  of  the  wayfarer  is  a  joyous  one ! "  ho 
cries.  "  Ah !  who  shall  set  me  adrift  upon 


02  VAMA. 

the  Nile!"  —  ami  with  thoso  words  tho  jour- 
mil  of  Maurice  do  Guerin  comes  to  a  sud 
den  end.  A  river  deeper  than  the  Nile  was 
opening  beneath  his  passionate,  tired  young 
eyes.  Kcinotcr  lands  than  Egypt  lay  before 
his  feet. 


GUIDES:  A  PROTEST. 

"  LIFE,"  sighed  Sir  George  Cornwall  Lewis, 
"would  be  endurable,  if  it  were  not  for  its 
pleasures ;  "  and  the  impatient  wanderer  in 
far-off  lands  is  tempted  to  paraphrase  this 
hackneyed  truism  into,  "  Traveling  would  bo 
enjoyable,  if  it  were  not  for  its  guides." 
Years  ago,  Mark  Twain  endeavored  to  point 
out  how  much  fun  could  be  derived  from  these 
"  necessary  nuisances  "  by  a  judicious  course 
of  chaifing ;  and  the  apt  illustrations  of  his 
methods  furnished  some  of  the  most  amusing 
passages  in  "  Innocents  Abroad."  But  it  is 
not  every  tourist  who  bubbles  over  with  mirth, 
and  that  unquenchable  spirit  of  humor  which 
turns  a  trial  into  a  blessing.  The  facility  for 
being  diverted  where  less  fortunate  people  are 
annoyed  is  a  rare  birthright,  and  worth  many 
a  mess  of  pottage.  Moreover,  in  these  days 
when  Baedeker  smooths  the  traveler's  path 
to  knowledge,  guides  are  no  longer  "  necessary 
nuisances."  They  are  plagues  to  no  pur- 


64  VAR1A. 

pose,  whose  persistency  deprives  inoffensive 
strangers  of  that  tranquil  enjoyment  they 
have  come  so  far  to  seek.  Nothing  is  more 
difficult  than  to  dilate  with  a  correct  emotion 
when  every  object  of  interest  is  pointed  rigor 
ously  out,  and  a  wearisome  trickle  of  infor 
mation,  couched  in  broken  English,  is  dropped 
relentlessly  into  our  tired  cars. 

It  need  not  be  supposed  for  a  moment  that 
there  is  any  real  option  about  employing  a 
guide  or  dispensing  with  his  services.  There 
is  none.  Practically  speaking,  I  don't  employ 
him.  lie  takes  possession  of  me,  and  never 
relaxes  his  hold.  In  some  parts  of  Europe, 
Sicily  for  example,  his  unlawful  ownership 
begins  from  the  first  moment  I  set  my  foot 
upon  the  soil.  At  Syracuse  he  is  waiting  at 
the  station,  in  charge  of  the  hotel  coach.  I 
think  him  the  hotel  porter,  point  out  our  bags, 
and  give  him  the  check  for  our  boxes.  As 
soon  as  we  are  under  way,  he  leans  over  and 
informs  us  confidentially  that  he  is  the  Eng 
lish  interpreter  and  guide,  officially  connected 
with  the  hotel,  and  that  he  is  happy  to  place 
his  services  at  our  disposal.  At  these  ominous 
v/ords  our  hearts  sink  heavily.  We  know 


GUIDES:    A   PROTEST.  G5 

that  the  hour  of  captivity  is  at  hand,  and 
that  all  efforts  to  escape  will  only  tighten  our 
chains.  Nevertheless,  we  make  the  effort  that 
very  day,  resolved  not  to  yield  without  a 
struggle. 

The  afternoon  is  drawing  to  a  close  by  the 
time  we  are  settled  in  our  rooms,  have  had 
a  cup  of  tea,  and  have  washed  away  some  of 
the  dirt  of  travel.  There  is  only  light  enough 
left  for  a  short  stroll ;  and  this  first  walk 
through  a  strange  city  is  one  of  my  princi 
pal  pleasures  in  traveling.  I  love  to  find  my 
self  amid  the  unfamiliar  streets ;  to  slip  into 
quiet  churches;  to  stare  in  shop  -  windows ; 
to  wander,  with  no  other  clue  than  Baede 
ker,  through  narrow  byways,  and  stumble  un 
aware  upon  some  open  court,  with  its  fine  old 
fountain  splashing  lazily  over  the  worn  stones. 
Filled  with  these  agreeable  anticipations,  we 
steal  downstairs,  and  see  our  guide  standing 
like  a  sentinel  at  the  door.  He  is  prepared 
to  accompany  us,  but  we  decline  his  services, 
explaining  curtly  that  we  are  only  going  out 
for  a  walk,  and  need  no  protection  whatever. 
It  sounds  decisive  —  to  us  —  and  we  congrat 
ulate  one  another  upon  such  well-timed  firm- 


GO  VARIA. 

ness,  until,  glancing  back,  we  perceive  our  de 
termined  guardian  following  us  on  the  other 
side  of  the  street.  Now,  as  long  as  we  keep 
straight  ahead,  pretending  to  know  our  way, 
we  are  safe ;  but  the  trouble  is  we  don't  know 
our  way,  and  in  a  few  minutes  it  is  neces 
sary  to  consult  Baedeker  and  find  out  where 
wo  are.  We  do  this  as  furtively  as  pos 
sible,  gathering  around  the  book  to  hide  it, 
and  moving  slowly  on  while  we  read.  But 
such  foolish  precautions  are  in  vain.  The 
guide  has  seen  us  pause.  He  knows  that  wo 
arc  astray,  that  we  are  trying  to  right  our 
selves,  —  a  thing  he  never  permits,  —  and  ho 
is  by  our  side  in  an  instant.  If  the  ladies 
desire  to  see  the  cathedral,  they  must  turn  to 
the  left.  It  is  very  near,  —  not  more  than 
a  few  minutes'  walk,  —  and  it  is  open  until 
six  o'clock.  We  think  of  saying  that  we  don't 
want  to  see  the  cathedral,  and  of  turning  to 
the  right ;  bnt  this  course  appears  rather  too 
perilous.  The  fact  is,  we  do  want  to  sec  it 
very  much ;  and  we  should  like,  moreover, 
to  see  it  without  delay,  and  alone.  So  wo 
thank  Brocconi,  —  that  is  the  guide's  name, 
—  and  say  we  can  find  our  way  now  without 


GUIDES:    A   PROTEST.  67 

aiiy  trouble.  And  so  wo  could,  if  wo  were 
left  to  ourselves ;  but  the  knowledge  that  wo 
arc  still  being  pursued  at  a  respectful  dis 
tance,  and  that  we  dare  not  pause  a  moment 
for  consideration,  flusters  us  sadly.  We  come 
to  a  point  where  two  streets  meet  at  an  acute 
angle,  hesitate,  plunge  down  the  nearer,  and 
hear  Brocconi\s  warning  voice  once  more  at 
our  elbows.  The  ladies  have  taken  a  wrong 
turning.  With  their  permission,  he  will  point 
them  out  the  road.  So  we  surrender  at  dis 
cretion,  feeling  all  further  resistance  to  bo 
useless,  and  are  conducted  to  the  cathedral 
in  a  pitiable  state  of  subjection  ;  are  marched 
dolorously  around  ;  are  shown  old  tombs,  and 
faded  pictures,  and  beautiful  bits  of  mosaic  ; 
and  then  are  led  back  to  the  hotel,  and  dis 
missed  with  the  assurance  that  we  will  be 
waited  on  early  the  next  morning,  and  that  a 
carriage  will  be  ready  for  us  by  ten. 

Perhaps  our  conduct  may  appear  pusillani 
mous  to  those  whose  resolution  has  never  been 
so  severely  tested.  We  feel  this  ourselves, 
and  deplore  the  cowardly  strain  in  our  natures, 
as  wo  trail  meekly  and  disconsolately  upstairs. 
There  is  a  little  cushioned  bench  just  outside 


G8  VARIA.      . 

my  bedroom  door,  and  I  know  that  when  I  go 
to  breakfast  in  the  morning  Broeconi  will  be 
sitting  there,  waiting  for  his  prey.  I  know 
that  when  I  come  back  from  breakfast  Broe 
coni  will  be  still  sitting  there,  and  that  I  can 
never  leave  my  room  without  seeing  him  in 
unquestioned  and  ostentatious  attendance  upon 
me.  lie  stands  up,  hat  in  hand,  to  salute  me, 
every  time  I  pass  him  ;  and  after  a  while  I 
take  to  lurking,  I  might  almost  say  to  skulk 
ing  within  my  chamber,  rather  than  encounter 
his  disappointed  and  reproachful  gaze.  With 
the  natural  tendency  of  a  woman  to  temporize, 
1  buy  my  freedom  one  day  by  engaging  his 
services  for  the  next.  If  he  will  permit  me 
to  go  alone  and  in  peace  to  the  Greek,  theatre, 
to  sit  on  the  grassy  hill  amid  the  wild  flowers, 
to  look  at  the  charming  view  and  breathe  the 
delicious  air  for  a  long,  lazy  afternoon,  I  will 
drive  with  him  the  following  morning  over 
the  dusty  glaring  road  to  Fort  Euryelus,  and 
be  marched  submissively  through  the  endless 
intricacies  of  its  subterranean  corridors,  and 
have  every  tiresome  detail  pointed  out  to  mo 
and  explained  with  merciless  prolixity. 

On  the  same  lamentably  weak  principle,  I 


GUIDES;    A   PROTEST.  CD 

purchase  —  wo  all  purchase  —  his  faded  and 
crumpled  photographs,  so  as  to  bo  let  off  from 
buying  his  u  antiquities/*  a  forlorn  collection 
of  mouldy  coins  and  broken  bits  of  terra  cotta, 
which  ho  carries  around  in  a  handkerchief 
and  hands  down  to  us,  one  by  one,  when  we 
are  prisoners  in  our  carriage,  and  cannot 
refuse  to  look  at  them.  Ho  is  so  pained  at 
our  giving  them  back  again  that  we  com 
promise  on  the  photographs,  though  they  aro 
the  most  decrepit  specimens  I  have  ever  be 
held  ;  almost  as  worn  and  flabby  as  the  little 
letters  of  recommendation  which  are  lent  to 
us  for  perusal,  and  which  state  with  monoto 
nous  amiability  that  the  writer  has  employed 
Domenico  Brocconi  as  guide  and  interpreter 
during  a  three  days'  stay  in  Syracuse,  and  has 
found  him  intelligent,  capable,  and  obliging. 
I  know  I  shall  have  to  write  one  of  these  let 
ters  before  I  go  away.  Indeed,  my  conscience 
aches  remorsefully  when  I  think  of  the  num 
ber  of  such  testimonials  I  have  strewn  broad 
cast  over  the  earth  to  be  a  delusion  and  a 
wnare  to  my  fellow  man.  It  never  occurred 
to  me  that  any  ono  would  regard  them  seri 
ously,  until  an  acquaintance  informed  me, 


70  \'Alt/A. 

with  some  asperity,  that  ho  had  employed  a 
guide  on  my  recommendation,  and  had  been 
cheated  by  him.  I  felt  very  sorry  for  this  ; 
for,  beyond  a  little  overcharging  in  the  matter 
of  fees  or  carriages,  which  is  part  of  the 
recognized  perquisites  of  the  calling,  no  guide 
has  ever  cheated  me.  On  the  contrary,  ho 
has  sometimes  saved  me  money.  My  aversion 
to  him  is  based  exclusively  on  the  fact  that 
he  strikes  a  discordant  note  wherever  he  ap 
pears,  lie  lias  always  something  to  tell  me 
which  1  don't  want  to  hear,  and  his  is  that 
leaden  touch  which  takes  all  color  and  grace 
from  every  theme  lie  handles. 

Constantinople,  as  the  chosen  abode  of  in 
security,  is  perhaps  the  only  city  within  the 
tourist's  beaten  track  where  a  guide  or  drago 
man  is  necessary  for  personal  safety,  as  well 
as  for  the  information  ho  imparts.  Baedeker 
lias  ignored  Constantinople,  or  perhaps  the 
authorities  of  that  curiously  misgoverned 
municipality  have  forbidden  his  profane  re 
searches  into  their  august  privacy.  Labor- 
saving  devices  find  scant  favor  with  the  sub 
jects  of  the  Sultan.  Vessels  may  not  approach 
the  docks  to  be  unloaded,  though  there  is 


GUIDES'.    A  PltOTXST.  71 

plenty  of  water  to  float  them,  because  that 
would  interfere  with  the  immemorial  privi 
leges  of  the  boatmen.  There  is  no  delivery 
of  city  mail,  but  a  man  can  always  bo  hired 
to  carry  your  letter  from  Pera  to  Stamboul. 
Guide-books  are  unknown,  but  a  dragoman  is 
attached  to  your  service  as  soon  as  you  arrive, 
and  is  as  inseparable  as  your  shadow  until  the 
hour  you  leave. 

The  rivalry  among  these  men  is  of  a  very 
active  order,  as  I  speedily  discovered  when  I 
stepped  from  the  Oriental  Express  into  that 
scene  of  mad  confusion  and  tumult,  the  Con 
stantinople  station.  It  was  drizzling  hard. 
I  was  speechless  from  a  heavy  cold.  Wo 
were  all  three  worn  out  with  the  absurd  and 
fatiguing  travesty  of  a  quarantine  on  the 
frontier.  Twenty  Turkish  porters  made  a 
wild  rush  for  our  bags  the  instant  the  train 
stopped,  and  fought  over  them  like  howling 
beasts.  A  tall  man  with  a  cast  in  his  eye, 
handed  me  a  card  on  which  my  own  name  was 
legibly  written,  and  said  he  was  the  dragoman 
sent  by  the  hotel  to  take  us  in  charge.  A 
little  man  with  a  nervous  and  excited  manner 
handed  me  a  card  on  which  also  my  name  was 


72  VARIA. 

legibly  written,  and  said  lie  was  the  dragoman 
sent  by  the  hotel  to  take  us  in  charge.  It  was 
a  case  for  the  judgment  of  Solomon  ;  and  I 
lacked  not  only  the  wisdom  to  decide,  but  the 
voice  in  which  to  utter  my  decision.  There 
was  nothing  for  it  but  to  let  the  claimants 
light  it  out,  which  they  proceeded  to  do  with 
fervor,  rolling  over  the  station  floor  and 
pounding  each  other  vigorously.  The  tall 
man,  being  much  the  better  combatant, 
speedily  routed  his  rival,  dragged  him  igno- 
miniously  from  the  carriage  when  he  attempted 
to  scale  it,  and  carried  us  off  in  triumph. 
But  the  race  is  not  always  to  the  swift,  nor 
the  battle  to  the  strong.  The  little  dragoman 
was  game  enough  not  to  know  when  he  was 
beaten,  lie  followed  us  in  another  carriage, 
and  made  good  his  case,  evidently,  with  the 
hotel  landlord  ;  for  we  found  him,  placid  and 
smiling,  in  the  corridor  next  morning,  waiting 
his  orders  for  the  day.  I  never  ventured  to 
ask  how  this  change  came  about,  lest  indis 
creet  inquiries  should  bring  a  second  drago 
man  upon  my  devoted  head  ;  so  Demetrius 
remained  our  guide,  philosopher,  and  friend 
for  the  three  weeks  we  spent  in  Constantino- 


GUIDES:    A   PROTEST.  73 

pie.  lie  was  not  a  bad  little  man,  on  the 
whole ;  was  extremely  patient  about  carrying 
wraps,  and  was  honestly  anxious  we  should 
suffer  no  annoyanee  in  the  streets.  But  his 
knowledge  upon  any  subject  was  of  the  haziest 
character.  Me  had  a  perfect  talent  for  get 
ting  us  to  places  at  the  wrong  time,  —  but 
that  may  have  been  partly  our  fault,  — and  if 
there  ever  was  anything  interesting  to  tell,  ho 
assuredly  never  told  it.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  considered  that,  to  our  Occidental  igno 
rance,  the  simplest  architectural  devices  needed 
an  explanation.  He  would  say,  "  This  is  a 
well,"  "  That  is  a  doorway,"  "  These  are  col 
umns  supporting  the  roof,"  with  all  the  be 
nevolent  simplicity  of  Harry  and  Lucy's  father 
enlightening  those  very  intelligent  and  igno 
rant  little  people. 

The  only  severe  trial  that  Demetrius  suf 
fered  in  our  service  was  the  occasional  attend 
ance  of  the  two  Kavasses  from  the  American 
Legation,  whose  protection  was  afforded  us 
twice  or  thrice,  through  tho  courtesy  of  the 
ministry.  These  magnificent  creatures  threw 
our  poor  little  dragoman  so  completely  into 
the  shade,  and  regarded  him  with  such  open 


74  VARIA. 

and  manifest  contempt,  that  all  his  innocent 
airs  of  importance  shriveled  into  humility 
and  dejection.  It  is  but  honest  to  state  that 
the  Kavasses  appeared  to  despise  us  quite  as 
cordially  as  they  did  Demetrius ;  but  we  sus 
tained  their  scorn  with  more  tranquillity  for 
the  sake  of  the  splendor  and  distinction  they 
imparted.  One  of  them  was  a  very  handsome 
and  very  supercilious  Turk,  who  never  conde 
scended  to  look  at  us  nor  to  speak  to  us ;  the 
other  a  Circassian,  whose  pride  was  tempered 
by  affability,  and  who  was  good  enough  to 
hold  with  us  the  strictly  necessary  intercourse. 
I  hear  it  is  said  now  and  then  by  censorious 
critics  that  American  women  are  the  most 
arrogant  of  their  sex,  affecting  a  superiority 
which  is  based  upon  no  justifiable  claim. 
But  I  candidly  admit  that  all  such  airy  no 
tions,  born  of  the  New  World  and  of  the  nine 
teenth  century,  dwindled  rapidly  away  before 
the  disdainful  composure  of  those  two  lordly 
Mohammedans.  The  old  primitive  instincts 
are  never  wholly  eradicated ;  only  overlaid 
with  the  acquired  sentiments  of  our  time  and 
place.  I  have  not  been  without  my  share  of 
self-assertion ;  but  my  meekness  of  spirit  in 


GUIDES:    A  PROTEST.  75 

Constantinople,  the  perfectly  natural  feeling 
I  had  in  being  snubbed  by  two  ignorant 
Kavasscs  blazing  with  gold  embroidery,  will 
always  remain  one  of  the  salutary  humilia 
tions  of  my  life. 

1  think  there  must  be  some  secret  system  of 
communication  by  which  the  guides  of  one  city 
consign  you  to  the  guides  of  another ;  for 
1  know  that  when  we  reached  Pinuus  at 
live  o'clock  in  the  morning,  an  olive-skinned, 
low -voiced,  mysterious -looking  person,  who 
reminded  me  strikingly  of  Eugene  Aram, 
boarded  the  ship,  knocked  at  my  cabin  door, 
and  gave  me  to  understand,  in  excellent  Eng 
lish,'  that  we  were  to  be  his  property  in 
Athens.  lie  said  he  was  not  connected  with 
any  hotel,  but  would  be  happy  to  wait  on  us 
wherever  we  went ;  and  he  had  all  three  of 
our  names  neatly  written  in  a  little  book.  I 
responded  as  firmly  as  I  could  that  I  did  not 
think  we  should  require  his  services ;  where 
upon  he  smiled  darkly,  and  hinted  that  we 
would  iind  it  diilicult,  and  perhaps  danger 
ous,  to  go  about  alone.  In  reality,  Athens  is 
as  well  conducted  as  Boston,  and  very  much 
easier  to  traverse ;  but  I  did  not  know  this 


7f>  VAMA. 

tlion,  so,  after  some  hesitation,  I  promised  to 
employ  my  mysterious  visitor  if  I  had  any 
occasion  for  u  guide.  It  was  a  promise  not 
easily  forgotten.  Morning,  noon,  and  night 
lie  haunted  us,  always  with  the  same  air  of 
mingled  secrecy  and  determination.  As  it 
chanced,  I  was  ill  for  several  days,  and  unable 
to  leave  my  room.  Regularly  after  breakfast 
there  would  come  a  low,  resolute  knock  at  my 
door,  and  Kugene  Aram,  pallid,  noiseless,  au 
thoritative,  would  slip  in,  and  stand  like  a 
sentinel  by  my  bed.  It  was  extremely  de 
pressing,  and  always  reminded  me  of  the 
presentation  of  a  Icltre,  de  cadet.  I  felt  that 
1  was  wronging  my  self-elected  guide  by  not 
getting  well  and  going  about,  and  his  civil 
inquiries  uncut  my  health  carried  with  them 
an  undertone  of  reproach.  Yet  with  returning 
vigor  came  a  firm  determination  to  escape  this 
melancholy  thraldom  ;  and  it  is  one  of  my 
keenest  pleasures  to  remember  that  on  tho 
golden  afternoon  when  I  first  climbed  the 
Acropolis,  and  looked  through  the  yellow  col 
umns  of  the  Parthenon  upon  the  cloudless 
skies  of  Greece,  and  saw  the  sea  gleaming  like 
a  silver  band,  and  watched  the  glory  of  tho 


VVJDKS:    A   PHOTKST.  77 

sunset  from  the  terrace  of  the  temple  of  Nike, 
no  Eugene  Aram  was  there  to  mar  my  abso 
lute  contentment.  This  was  the  enchanted 
hour,  never  to  be  repeated  nor  surpassed,  and 
this  hour  was  mine  to  enjoy.  When  I  am 
setting  forth  my  trials  with  all  the  wordy 
eloquence  of  discontent,  let  mo  "think  of 
my  marcics,"  and  be  grateful. 

Thanks  to  the  protecting  hand  of  England, 
Cairo,  which  once  was  little  better  than  Con 
stantinople,  is  now  as  safe  as  London.  On 
the  Nile,  it  is  hardly  possible  to  leave  one's 
boat,  save  under  the  care  of  a  dragoman. 
Even  at  Luxor  and  Assuan,  the  attentions  of 
this  native  population  are  of  a  rather  overpower 
ing  character,  lint  at  Cairo,  whether  amid  the 
hurrying  crowds  in  the  bazaars  or  on  the  quiet 
road  to  the  Gezirah,  there  is  no  annoyance  of 
any  kind  to  be  apprehended.  Nevertheless,  a 
little  army  of  guides  is  connected  with  every 
hotel,  and  troups  of  irregulars  line  the  streets, 
and  press  their  services  upon  you  as  you  pass. 
I  noticed  that  while  a  great  many  Americans 
had  a  dragoman  permanently  attached  to  their 
service,  and  never  went  out  unaccompanied, 
the  English  and  Germans  resolutely  ignored 


78  VARIA. 

these  expensive  and  irritating  inutilities.  If 
by  chance  they  desired  any  attendant,  they 
employed  in  preference  one  of  the  ruminating 
donkey-boys  who  stand  all  day,  supple  and 
serious,  alongside  of  their  melancholy  little 
beasts.  Upon  one  occasion,  an  Englishwoman 
was  just  stopping  into  her  carriage,  having 
engaged  a  boy  to  accompany  her  to  the  mosqiio 
of  the  Sultan  Hassan,  when  a  tall  and  tur- 
baned  Turk,  indignant  at  this  invasion  of 
his  privileges,  called  out  to  her  scornfully, 
"  Do  you  think  that  lad  wrill  be  able  to  ex 
plain  to  you  anything  you  are  going  to  sec?" 
The  Englishwoman  turned  her  smiling  face. 
I  fancied  she  would  be  angry  at  the  imperti 
nence,  but  she  was  not.  She  had  fliat  abso 
lute  command  of  herself  and  of  the  situation 
which  is  the  birthright  of  her  race.  "  It  is 
precisely  because  I  know  he  can  explain  no 
thing  that  I  take  him  with  me,"  she  said.  "  If 
I  could  be  equally  sure  of  your  silence,  I 
should  be  willing  to  take  you." 

Local  guides  are  as  numerous  and  as  syste 
matic  in  Cairo  as  in  more  accessible  cities,  and 
they  have  the  same  curious  tendency  to  multi 
ply  themselves  around  any  object  of  interest, 


GUIDES:    A   PROTEST.  79 

and  to  subdivide  the  scanty  labor  attendant  on 
its  exhibition.  When  we  went  to  the  Coptie 
church,  for  example,  a  heavy  wooden  door  was 
opened  for  us  by  youth  number  one,  who  pointed 
out  the  enormous  size  of  the  venerable  key  he 
carried,  and  then  consigned  us  to  the  care  of 
youth  number  two,  who  led  the  way  through  a 
narrow,  picturesque  lane  to  the  church  itself, 
and  gave  us  into  the  charge  of  youth  number 
three,  a  handsome,  bare-legged  boy  with  bril 
liant  eyes,  who  lit  a  taper  and  kindly  con 
ducted  us  around.  When  we  had  examined 
the  dim  old  pictures,  and  the  faded  missals, 
and  the  beautiful  screens  of  inlaid  wood,  and 
the  grotto  wherein  the  Holy  Family  is  piously 
believed  to  have  found  shelter,  this  acute  child 
presented  us  to  a  white-haired  Coptic  priest, 
and  explained  that  it  was  to  him  we  were  to 
offer  our  fee.  I  promptly  did  as  I  was  bidden, 
and  the  boy,  after  carefully  examining  and 
approving  the  amount,  —  tho  priest  himself 
never  glanced  at  it  nor  at  us,  —  requested  fur 
ther  payment  for  his  own  share  of  work.  I 
gave  him  three  piastres,  being  much  pleased 
with  his  businesslike  methods,  whereupon  ho 
handed  us  back  to  youth  number  two,  who  had 


80  VARIA. 

been  waiting  all  this  time  at  the  church  door, 
and  whom  I  was  obliged  to  pay  for  leading  us 
through  the  lane.  Then,  after  satisfying  youth 
number  one,  who  mounted  guard  at  the  gate, 
wo  were  permitted  to  regain  our  carriage  and 
drive  away  amid  a  clamorous  crowd  of  beg 
gars.  It  was  as  admirable  a  piece  of  organized 
work  as  I  have  ever  seen,  and  would  have 
done  credit  to  a  labor  union  in  America. 

On  precisely  the  same  principle,  we  often 
find  the  railed-off  chapels  of  an  Italian  church 
to  be  each  under  the  care  of  a  separate  sac 
ristan,  who  jingles  his  keys  alluringly,  and 
does  his  best  to  beguile  us  into  his  own  espe 
cial  inclosure.  I  have  suffered  a  good  deal 
in  Sicily  and  in  Naples  from  sacristans  who 
could  not  be  brought  to  understand  that  I  had 
come  to  church  to  pray.  The  mark  of  the 
tourist  is  like  the  brand  of  Cain,  recognizable 
to  all  men.  Even  one's  nationality  is  seldom 
a  matter  of  doubt,  and  an  Italian  sacristan 
who  cherishes  the  opinion  that  English-speak 
ing  people  stand  self-convicted  of  heresy,  can 
see  no  reason  for  my  entering  the  sacred  edi 
fice  save  to  be  shown  its  treasures  with  all 
speed.  So  he  beckons  to  me  from  dark  cor- 


GUIDES:    A  PROTEST.  81 

ners,  and  waves  his  keys  at  me ;  and,  finding 
me  unresponsive  to  these  appeals,  he  sidles 
through  the  little  kneeling  throng  to  tell  me 
in  a  loud  whisper  that  Domeniehino's  picture 
is  over  the  third  altar  on  the  left,  or  that 
forty-five  princes  of  the  house  of  Aragon  are 
buried  in  the  sacristy.  By  this  time  devout 
worshipers  arc  beginning  to  look  at  mo 
askance,  as  if  it  were  my  fault  that  I  am  dis 
turbing  them.  So  I  get  up  and  follow  my 
persecutor,  and  stare  at  the  forty-live  wooden 
sarcophagi  of  the  Aragoncse  princes,  draped 
with  velvet  palls,  and  ranged  on  shelves  like 
dry  goods.  Then,  mass  being  over,  I  slip  out 
of  St.  DomenicaX  and  make  my  way  to  the 
cathedral  of  St.  Januarius,  where  another  sac 
ristan  instantly  lays  hands  on  me,  and  carries 
me  down  to  the  crypt  to  see  the  reliquary  of 
the  saint,  lie  is  a  stout,  smiling  man,  with  an 
unbounded  enthusiasm  for  all  he  has  to  show.' 
Even  the  naked,  fat,  Cupid-like  angels  who 
riot  hero  as  wantonly  as  in  every  other  Nea 
politan  church  fill  him  with  admiration  and 
delight.  He  taps  them  on  their  plump  little 
stomachs,  and  exclaims,  "  Tout  en  marbre ! 
Tout  en  marbre ! "  looking  at  me  meanwhile 


VAItlA. 

with  wide-open  eyes,  as  if  marble  angels  were 
as  much  of  a  rarity  in  Italy  as  in  Greenland. 
By  the  time  his  transports  have  moderated 
sufficiently  to  allow  me  to  depart,  a  tall,  grim 
sacristan,  with  nothing  to  show,  is  locking  up 
the  cathedral,  and  I  am  obliged  to  go  away 
with  all  my  prayers  unsaid. 

It  i.s  possible  to  be  too  discursive  when  a  pet 
grievance  has  an  airing,  Therefore,  instead 
of  lingering,  as  I  should  like  to  do,  over  a  still 
unexhausted  subject ;  instead  of  telling  about 
a  dreadful  one-eyed  man  who  pursued  me  like 
a  constable  into  the  cathedral  of  Catania, 
and  fairly  arrested  mo  at  St.  Agatha's  shrine, 
whither  I  had  fled  for  protection ;  instead  of 
describing  an  unscrupulous  fraud  at  Amalfi 
who  led  me  for  half  a  mile  in  the  dripping 
rain  through  a  soaked  little  valley,  under  pre 
tense  of  showing  me  a  macaroni  factory,  and 
then  naVvoly  confessed  we  had  gone  in  the 
opposite  direction  because  the  walk  was  so 
charming,  —  instead  of  denouncing  the  accu 
mulated  crimes  of  the  whole  sinful  fraternity, 
I  will  render  tardy  justice  to  one  lloman  guide 
whose  incontestable  merits  deserve  a  grateful 
acknowledgment.  lie  was  a  bulky  and  very 


GUIDES:    A   PROTEST.  83 

dirty  man  in  the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo,  to 
whose  care  fourteen  tourists,  English,  French, 
and  Germans,  were  officially  committed.  He 
spoke  no  language  but  his  own,  and  he  set 
himself  resolutely  to  work  to  make  every  vis 
itor  understand  all  he  had  to  tell  by  the  help 
of  that  admirable  pantomimic  art  in  which 
Italians  have  such  extraordinary  facility.  It 
was  impossible  to  misapprehend  him.  If  lie 
wished  to  show  us  the  papal  bed-chamber,  he 
retired  into  one  corner  and  snored  loudly  on 
an  imaginary  couch.  When  we  came  to  the 
dining-room,  he  made  a  feint  of  eating  a  hearty 
meal.  With  amazing  agility  he  illustrated 
the  manner  of  Benvenuto  Cellini's  escape,  and 
the  breaking  of  his  ankles  in  the  fall.  Ho 
decapitated  himself  without  a  sword  as  Bea 
trice  Cenci,  and  racked  himself  without  a  rack 
as  another  unhappy  prisoner.  He  lowered 
himself  as  a  drawbridge,  and  even  tried  to 
explode  himself  as  a  cannon,  in  his  efforts  to 
make  us  better  acquainted  with  the  artillery. 
He  was  absolutely  serious  all  this  time,  yet 
never  seemed  flustered  nor  annoyed  by  the 
peals  of  irresistible  laughter  which  greeted 
some  of  his  most  difficult  representations.  He 


81  VARIA. 

had  but  one  object  in  view,  — to  be  understood. 
If  we  were  amused,  that  did  not  matter ;  and 
if  we  were  a  little  rude,  that  was  merely  the 
manner  of  foreigners;  I  do  not  wish  to  close 
a  chapter  of  fault-finding  without  one  word  of 
praise  for  this  clever  and  conscientious  actor, 
whose  performance  was  limited  to  the  ignoble 
task  of  conducting  travelers  through  a  dilapi 
dated  fortress,  but  whom  I  cannot  consent  to 
look  upon  as  a  guide. 


LITTLE  PHARISEES  IN  FICTION. 

IN  that  accurate  and  interesting  study  of  Pu 
ritanism  which  Alice  Morse  Earle  has  rather 
laboriously  entitled  "  Customs  and  Fashions  in 
Old  New  England,"  there  is  a  delightful  chap 
ter  devoted  to  the  little  boys  and  girls  who 
lived  their  chastened  lives  under  the  uncompro 
mising  discipline  of  the  church.  With  many 
prayers,  with  scanty  play,  with  frequent  ex 
hortations,  and  a  depressing  consciousness  of 
their  own  sinful  natures,  these  children  walked 
sedately  in  the  bleak  atmosphere  of  continual 
correction.  By  way  of  pastime1,  they  were 
taken  to  church,  to  baptisms,  and  to  funerals, 
and  for  rending  they  had  the  u  Early  Piety 
Series,"  "  Spiritual  Milk  for  Boston  Bubcs," 
"The  Conversion  and  Exemplary  Lives  of 
Several  Young  Children,"  and  a  "  Particular 
Account  of  Some  Extraordinary  Pious  Mo 
tions  and  Devout  Exercises  observed  of  late 
in  Many  Children  in  Siberia,"  —  a  safe  and 
remote  spot  in  which  to  locate  something  too 


SO  VARIA. 

"extraordinary"  for  belief.  To  this  list 
Cotton  Mather  added  "  Good  Lessons  for 
Children  in  Verse,"  by  no  means  a  sprightly 
volume,  and  "  Some  Examples  of  Children  in 
whom  the  Fear  of  God  was  remarkably  Bud 
ding  before  they  died ;  in  several  parts  of 
New  England." 

Small  wonder  that  under  this  depressing 
burden  of  books,  little  boys  and  girls,  too 
young  to  know  the  meaning  of  sin,  were  as 
sailed  with  grievous  doubts  concerning  their 
salvation.  Small  wonder  that  Betty  Sewall,  an 
innocent  child  of  nine,  "  burst  into  an  amaz 
ing  cry  "  after  reading  a  page  or  two  of  Cotton 
]\ lather,  and  said  "  she  was  afraid  she  should 
goe  to  Hell,  her  sins  were  not  pardon'd."  It  is 
heart-rending  to  read  Judge  Sewall's  entry  in 
liis  diary  :  "  Betty  can  hardly  read  her  chapter 
for  weeping.  Tells  me  she  is  afraid  she  is 
gone  back  "  (at  nine).  "  Does  not  taste  that 
sweetness  in  reading  the  Word  which  once  she 
did.  Fears  that  what  was  upon  her  is  worn 
oiT.  1  said  what  1  could  to  her,  and  in  tho 
evening  pray'd  with  her  alone."  It  is  scant 
comfort  for  us,  recalling  the  misery  of  this  poor 
wounded  child,  and  of  many  others  who  suf- 


LITTLE  PHARISEES   IN  FICTION.         87 

fered  with  her,  to  know  that  Phebe  Bartlett 
was  ostentatiously  converted  at  four ;  that  Jane 
Turell  "  asked  many  astonishing  questions 
about  divine  mysteries,"  before  she  was  five ; 
and  that  an  infant  son  of  Cotton  Mather's 
"made  a  most  edifying  end  in  praise  and 
prayer,"  at  the  age  of  two  years  and  seven 
months.  We  cannot  forget  the  less  happy 
children  who,  instead  of  developing  into  baby 
prodigies  or  baby  prigs,  fretted  out  their  help 
less  hearts  in  nightly  fears  of  Hell. 

Nor  is  there  in  the  whole  of  this  painful 
precocity  one  redeeming  touch  of  human  child 
hood,  such  as  that  joyous  setting  forth  of  tho 
little  St.  Theresa  and  her  brother  to  convert  the 
inhabitants  of  Morocco,  and  be  martyred  for 
their  faith ;  an  enterprise  as  natural  to  keenly 
imaginative  children  of  the  sixteenth  century 
as  was  the  expedition  two  hundred  years  later 
of  the  six  little  IMuc  Coat  boys,  who,  without 
map,  chart,  or  compass,  without  luggage,  pro 
visions,  or  money,  started  out  one  bright  spring 
morning  to  iind  IMiilip  QuiirH's  Island.  Sun 
light  and  shadow  are  not  farther  apart  than 
the  wholesome  love  of  adventure  which  reli 
gion  as  well  as  history  and  fairy-lore  can 


88  VARIA. 

inspire  in  the  childish  heart,  and  that  morbid 
conscientiousness  which  impels  the  young  to 
the  bitter  task  of  self-analysis.  The  most 
depressing  thing  about  pious  fiction  for  little 
people  is  that  it  so  seldom  takes  human  nature 
into  account.  I  read  not  long  ago  an  English 
Sunday  -  school  story  in  which  a  serious  aunt 
severely  reproves  her  twelve-year-old  niece  for 
saying  she  would  like  to  go  to  India  and  have 
a  Bible  class  of  native  children,  by  telling  her 
it  is  vain  and  foolish  to  talk  in  that  way,  and 
that  what  she  can  do  is  to  be  a  better  child 
herself,  and  save  up  her  money  for  the  mis 
sion-box.  Now  the  dream  of  going  to  a  far-off 
land  and  doing  good  in  a  lavish,  semi-miracu 
lous  fashion  is  as  natural  for  a  pious  and  ima 
ginative  little  girl,  as  is  the  dream  of  fighting 
savages  for  a  less  pious  but  equally  imagina 
tive  little  boy.  It  is  well,  no  doubt,  that  all 
generous  impulses  should  have  some  practical 
outlet ;  but  the  aunt's  dreary  counsel  was  too 
suggestive  of  those  ethical  verses,  familiar  to 
my  own  infancy,  which  began :  — 

"  *  A  penny  I  have,'  little  Mary  said, 
As  she  thoughtfully  raised  lier  hand  to  her  head," 

and   described   the   anxious   musings  of   this 


LITTLE   PHARISEES   IN  FICTION.         89 

weak  child  as  to  how  the  money  might  be 
most  profitably  employed,  until  at  length  she 
relieved  herself  of  all  moral  obligation  by 
putting  it  into  the  mission-box.  It  is  not 
possible  for  a  real  little  girl  to  sympathize 
with  such  a  situation.  She  may  give  away 
her  pennies  impulsively,  as  Charles  Lamb  gave 
away  his  plum-cake,  —  to  his  lasting  regret 
and  remorse,  —  but  she  docs  not  start  out  by 
worrying  over  her  serious  responsibility  as  a 
capitalist. 

The  joyless  literature  provided  for  the  chil 
dren  of  Puritanism  in  the  New  World  was 
little  less  lugubrious  than  that  which  a  century 
later,  in  many  a  well-tended  English  nursery, 
made  the  art  of  reading  a  thoroughly  unde 
sirable  accomplishment.  ITappy  the  boy  who 
could  escape  into  the  air  and  sunshine  with 
Robinson  Crusoe.  Happy  the  girl  who  found 
a  constant  friend  in  Miss  Edgeworth's  little 
Rosamond.  For  always  on  the  book-shelf  sat, 
sombre  and  implacable,  the  unsmiling  "  Fair- 
child  Family,"  ready  to  hurl  texts  at  every 
body's  head,  and  to  prove  at  a  moment's  notice 
the  utter  depravity  of  the  youthful  heart.  It 
is  inconceivable  that  such  a  book  should  have 


90  VARIA. 

retained  its  place  for  many  years,  and  that 
thousands  of  little  readers  should  have  plodded 
'their  weary  way  through  its  unwholesome 
pages.  For  combined  wretchedness  and  self- 
righteousness,  for  groveling  fear  and  a  total 
lack  of  charity,  the  "  Fairchild  Family  "  are 
without  equals'  in  literature,  and,  I  hope,  in 
life.  Lucy  Fairchild,  at  nine,  comes  to  the 
conclusion  "  that  there  are  very  few  real  Chris 
tians  in  the  world,  and  that  a  great  part  of 
the  human  race  will  be  finally  lost ;  "  and  mod 
estly  proposes  to  her  brother  and  sister  that 
they  should  recite  some  verses  "  about  man 
kind  having  bad  hearts."  This  is  alacritously 
done,  the  other  children  being  more  than  equal 
to  the  emergency  ;  and  each  in  turn  quotes  a 
text  to  prove  that  "  the  nature  of  man,  after 
the  fall  of  Adam,  is  utterly  and  entirely  sin 
ful."  Lest  this  fundamental  truth  should  bo 
occasionally  forgotten,  a  prayer  is  composed 
for  Lucy,  which  she  commits  to  memory,  and 
a  portion  of  which  runs  thus  :  — 

"  My  heart  is  so  exceedingly  wicked,  so  vile, 
so  full  of  sill,  that  even  when  1  appear  to  bo 
tolerably  good,  even  then  I  am  sinning.  When 
1  am  praying,  or  reading  the  Bible,  or  hearing 


LITTLE  PHARISEES   IN  FICTION.         91 

other  people  read  the  Bible,  even  then  I  sin. 
When  I  speak,  I  sin;  when  I  am  silent,  I 


sin." 


In  fact,  an  anxious  alertness,  a  continual 
apprehension  of  ill-doing,  is  the  keynote  of  this 
extraordinary  book ;  and  that  its  author,  Mrs. 
Sherwood,  considered  the  innocence  of  child 
hood  and  even  of  infancy  an  insufficient  bar 
rier  to  evil,  is  proven  by  an  anecdote  which  she 
tells  of  herself  in  her  memoirs.  When  she  was 
in  her  fourth  year,  a  gentleman,  a  guest  of  her 
father's, "  who  shall  be  nameless,"  took  her  on 
his  knee,  and  said  something  to  her  which  she 
could  not  understand,  but  which  she  felt  at 
once  was  not  fit  for  female  ears,  "  especially 
not  for  the  female  cars  of  extreme  youth." 
Indignant  at  this  outrage  to  propriety,  she 
exclaimed,  u  You  are  a  naughty  man  !  "  where 
upon  he  became  embarrassed,  and  put  her 
down  upon  the  floor.  That  a  baby  of  three 
should  be  so  keen  to  comprehend,  or  rather 
not  to  comprehend,  but  to  suspect  an  indeco 
rum,  seems  well-nigh  incredible,  and  I  confess 
that  ever  since  reading  this  incident  I  have 
been  assailed  with  a  hopeless,  an  undying  curi 
osity  to  know  what  it  was  the  "nameless" 
gentleman  said. 


92  VARIA. 

The  painful  precocity  of  children  anent 
matters  profane  and  spiritual  is  insisted  upon 
so  perse veringly  by  writers  of  Sunday-school 
literature  that  Mrs.  Sherwood's  infancy  ap 
pears  to  have  been  the  recognized  model  for 
them  all.  In  one  of  these  stories,  which  claims 
to  be  the  veracious  history  of  a  very  young 
child,  compared  with  whom,  however,  the 
"  fairy  babes  of  tombs  and  graves  "  are  soberly 
natural  and  realistic,  I  found  I  was  expected 
to  believe  that  an  infant  a  year  old  loved  to 
hear  her  father  read  the  Bible,  and  would  lie 
in  her  cot  with  clasped  hands,  listening  to  the 
precious  words.  Though  she  could  say  but 
little,  —  at  twelve  months,  —  yet  when  she  saw 
her  parents  sitting  down  to  breakfast  without 
cither  prayers  or  reading,  she  would  put  out  her 
hands,  and  cry  "  No,  no !  "  and  look  wistfully 
at  the  J>ible  on  the  shelf.  When  two  years 
old,  "  she  was  never  weary  at  church,"  nor  at 
Sunday-school,  where  she  sat  gazing  rapturously 
in  her  teacher's  face.  It  is  unnecessary  for 
any  one  familiar  with  such  tales  to  be  assured 
that  as  soon  as  she  could  speak  plainly  she 
went  about  correcting,  not  only  all  the  chil 
dren  iu  the  neighborhood,  but  all  the  adults 


LITTLE  PHARISEES  IN  FICTION.         93 

as  well.  A  friend  of  her  father's  was  in  the 
habit  of  petting  and  caressing  her,  though 
Heaven  knows  how  he  had  the  temerity,  and 
she  showed  him  every  mark  of  affection  until 
she  heard  of  some  serious  wrong-doing  — 
drunkenness,  I  think  —  on  his  part.  The  next 
time  he  came  to  the  house  she  refused  sadly  to 
sit  on  his  knee,  "  but  told  him  earnestly  her 
feelings  about  all  that  he  had  done.'*  Finally 
she  fell  ill,  and  after  taking  bitter  medicines 
with  delight,  and  using  her  last  breath  to  re 
proach  her  father  for  "not  coming  up  to 
prayers,"  she  died  at  the  age  of  four  and  a 
half  years,  to  the  unexpressed,  because  inex 
pressible,  relief  of  everybody.  The  standard 
of  infant  death-beds  has  reached  a  difficult 
point  of  perfection  since  Cotton  Mather's  baby 
set  the  example  by  making  its  u  edifying  end 
in  praise  and  prayer,"  before  it  was  three  years 
old. 

The  enormous  circulation  of  Sunday-school 
books,  both  in  England  and  America,  has 
resulted  in  a  constant  exchange  of  commodi 
ties.  For  many  years  we  have  given  as  freely 
as  we  have  received  ;  and  if  English  reviewers 
from  the  first  were  disposed  to  look  askance 


94  VAR1A. 

upon  our  contributions,  English  nurseries  ab 
sorbed  them  unhesitatingly,  and  English  chil 
dren  read  them,  if  not  with  interest,  at  least 
with  meekness  and  docility.  When  the  "  Fair- 
child  Family  "  and  the  "  Lady  of  the  Manor  " 
crossed  the  Atlantic  to  our  hospitable  shores,  we 
sent  back,  returning  evil  for  evil,  the  "  Youth's 
Book  of  Natural  Theology,"  in  which  small 
boys  and  girls  argue  their  way,  witli  some  kind 
preceptor's  help,  from  the  existence  of  a 
chicken  to  the  existence  of  God,  thus  learning 
at  a  tender  age  the  first  lessons  of  religious 
doubt.  At  the  same  time  that  the  "  Leila " 
books  and  "  Mary  and  Florence  "  found  their 
way  to  legions  of  young  Americans,  "  The 
Wide,  Wide  World,"  "Quccchy,"  and  "Mel 
bourne  House,"  —  with  its  intolerable  little 
prig  of  a  heroine  —  were,  if  possible,  more 
immoderately  read  in  England  than  at  home. 
And  in  this  case,  the  serious  wrong-doing  lies 
at  our  doors.  If  the  u  Leila  "  books  be  rather 
too  full  of  sermons  and  pious  conversations, 
long  conversations  of  an  uncompromisingly 
didactic  order,  they  are  nevertheless  interesting 
and  wholesome,  brimming  with  adventures,  and 
humanized  by  a  very  agreeable  sense  of  fun. 


LITTLE  PHARISEES   IN    FICTION.          95 

Moreover,  these  English  children,  although 
incredibly  good,  have  the  grace  to  l>c  uncon 
scious  of  their  goodness.  Even  Selina,  who, 
like  young  Wackford  Squeers,  is  u  next  door 
but  one  to  a  cherubim,"  is  apparently  unaware 
of  the  fact.  Leila  docs  not  instruct  her  father. 
She  receives  counsel  quite  humbly  from  his 
lips,  though  she  is  full  eight  years  old  when 
the  first  volume  opens.  Matilda  has  never  any 
occasion  to  remonstrate  gently  with  her  mother ; 
and  little  Alfred  fails,  in  the  whole  course  of 
his  infant  life,  to  once  awaken  in  his  parents' 
friends  an  acute  sense  of  their  own  unworthi- 
ness. 

This  conservative  attitude  is  due,  perhaps, 
to  the  rigid  prejudices  of  the  Old  World.  In 
our  freer  air,  children,  released  from  thraldom, 
develop  swiftly  into  guides  and  teachers.  We 
first  introduced  into  the  literature  of  the  Sun 
day-school  the  offensively  pious  little  Christian 
who  makes  her  father  and  mother,  her  uncles 
and  aunts,  even  her  venerable  grandparents, 
the  subjects  of  her  spiritual  ministrations.  We 
first  taught  her  to  confront,  Bible  in  hand, 
the  harmless  adults  who  had  given  her  birth, 
and  to  annihilate  their  feeble  arguments  with 


t)<>  VARIA. 

denunciatory  texts.  AVe  first  surrounded  her 
with  the  persecutions  of  the  worldly-minded, 
that  her  virtues  might  shine  uioro  glaringly 
in  the  gloom,  and  disquisitions  on  duty  bo 
never  out  of  place.  Daisy,  in  "Melbourne 
House/'  is  an  example  of  a  perniciously  good 
child  who  has  the  conversion  of  her  family  on 
her  hands,  and  is  well  aware  of  the  dignity  of 
her  position.  Her  trials  and  triumphs,  her 
tears  and  prayers,  her  sufferings  and  rewards, 
fill  two  portly  volumes,  and  have  doubtless  in 
spired  many  a  young  reader  to  set  immediately 
about  the  correction  of  her  patents'  faults. 
The  same  lesson  is  taught  with  even  greater 
emphasis  by  a  more  recent  writer,  whose  works, 
I  am  told,  arc  so  exceedingly  popular  that  she 
is  not  permitted  to  lay  down  her  pen.  Hun 
dreds  of  letters  reach  her  every  year,  begging 
for  a  new  u  Elsie  "  book ;  and  the  amiability 
with  which  she  responds  to  the  demand  has 
resulted  in  a  fair-sized  library,  —  twice  as  many 
volumes  probably  as  Sir  Walter  Scott  ever 
read  in  the  whole  course  of  his  childish  life. 

Now  if,  as  the  "Ladies'  Home  Journal" 
informs  us,  "  there  has  been  no  character  in 
American  juvenile  fiction  who  has  attained 


LITTLE  PHARISEES  IN  FICTION.         97 

more  widespread  interest  and  affection  than 
Elsie  Diusmore,"  then  children  have  altered 
strangely  since  I  was  young,  and  "  skipping 
the  moral "  was  a  recognized  habit  of  the 
nursery.  It  would  be  impossible  to  skip  the 
moral  of  the  "  Elsie  "  books,  because  the  re 
siduum  would  be  nothingness.  Lucy  Fair- 
child  and  Daisy  Randolph  are  hardened  repro 
bates  compared  with  Elsie  Dinsmore.  .It  is 
true  we  are  told  when  the  first  book  opens 
that  she  is  "  not  yet  perfect ;  "  but  when  we 
find  her  taking  her  well-worn  Bible  out  of  her 
desk  —  she  is  eight  years  old  —  and  consoling 
herself  with  texts  for  the  injustice  of  grown 
up  people,  we  begin  to  doubt  the  assertion. 
When  we  hear  her  say  to  a  visitor  old  enough 
to  be  her  father :  "  Surely  you  know  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  little  sin.  Don't 
you  remember  about  the  man  who  picked  up 
sticks  on  the  Sabbath  day  ?  "  the  hist  linger 
ing  hope  as  to  her  possible  fallibility  dies  in 
our  dejected  bosoms.  We  are  not  surprised 
after  this  to  hear  that  she  is  unwilling  to  wear 
a  new  frock  on  Sunday,  lest  she  should  be 
tempted  to  think  of  it  in  church  ;  and  we  are 
fully  prepared  for  the  assurance  that  she 


(J8  VARIA. 

knows  her  father  "  is  not  a  Christian,"  and 
that  she  "  listens  with  pain  '•'  to  his  unprin 
cipled  conjecture  that  when  a  man  leads  an 
honest,  upright,  moral  life,  is  regular  in  his 
attendance  at  church,  and  observes  all  the 
laws,  he  probably  goes  to  heaven.  This  san 
guine  statement  is  as  reprehensible  to  Elsie  as 
it  would  have  been  to  the  Fairchild  family  ; 
and  when  Mr.  Dinsmore  —  a  harmless,  but 
very  foolish  and  consequential  person —  is 
taken  ill,  his  little  daughter  pours  out  her 
heart  u  in  agonizing  supplication  that  her  dear, 
dear  papa  might  be  spared,  at  hast  until  lie 
trasjit  to  (jo  to  Jfeacen." 

A  few  old-fashioned  people  will  consider 
this  mental  attitude  an  unwholesome  one  for 
a  child,  and  will,  perhaps  be  of  the  opinion 
that  it  is  better  for  a  little  girl  to  do  some 
thing  moderately  naughty  herself  than  to 
judge  her  parents  so  severely.  But  Elsie  is 
a  young  Khadamanthus,  from  whose  verdicts 
there  is  no  appeal.  She  sees  with  dismay  her 
father  amusing  himself  with  a  novel  on  Sun 
day,  and  begs  at  once  that  she  may  recite  to 
him  some  verses.  Forgetful  of  her  principles, 
he  asks  her,  when  convalescing  from  his  tc- 


LITTLE   PHARISEES    IN   FICTION.          09 

dious  illness,  to  read  aloud  to  him  for  an  hour. 
Alas !  "  The  book  her  father  bade  her  read 
was  simply  a  fictitious  moral  tale,  without  a 
particle  of  religious  truth  in  it,  and,  Elsie's 
conscience  told  her,  entirely  unfit  for  the  Sab 
bath."  In  vain  Mr.  Dinsmoro  reminds  her 
that  ho  is  somewhat  older  than  she  is,  and  as 
sures  her  he  would  not  ask  her  to  do  anything 
he  thought  was  wrong.  "  6  But,  papa,'  she 
replied  timidly,"  -  she  is  now  nine,  —  k>  4  you 
know  the  Bible  says,  "  They  measuring  them 
selves  by  themselves,  and  comparing  them 
selves  among  themselves,  are  not  wise." 
This  text  failing  to  convince  Mr.  Dinsmore, 
he  endeavors,  through  wearisome  chapter  after 
chapter,  to  break  Elsie's  heroic  resolution, 
until,  as  a  final  resource,  she  becomes  ill  in  her 
turn,  makes  her  last  will  and  testament,  and 
is  only  induced  to  remain  upon  a  sinful  earth 
when  her  father,  contrite  and  humbled,  im 
plores  her  forgiveness,  and  promises  amend 
ment.  It  never  seems  to  occur  to  the  author 
of  these  remarkable  stories  that  a  child's  most 
precious  privilege  is  to  be  exempt  from  serious 
moral  responsibility ;  that  a  supreme  confi 
dence  in. the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  his  par- 


100  VARIA. 

cuts  is  his  best  safeguard  ;  and  that  to  shake 
this  innocent  belief,  this  natural  and  holy 
creed  of  infancy,  is  to  destroy  childhood  itself, 
and  to  substitute  the  precocious  melancholy  of 
a  prig. 

For  nothing  can  bo  more  dreary  than  the 
recital  of  Elsie's  sorrows  and  persecutions. 
Every  page  is  drenched  with  tears.  She  goes 
about  with  "  tear-swollen  eyes,"  she  rushes 
to  her  room  "  shaken  with  sobs,"  her  grief  is 
u  dee])  and  despairing,"  she  "  cries  and  sobs 
dreadfully,"  she  "  stifles  her  sobs,"  — but  this 
is  rare,  —  she  is  "  blinded  with  welling  tears." 
In  her  more  buoyant  moments,  a  tear  merely 
"  trickles  down  her  cheek,"  and  on  compara 
tively  cheerful  nights  she  is  content  to  shed 
"  a  few  quiet  tears  upon  her  pillow."  On 
more  serious  occasions,  "  a  low  cry  of  utter 
despair  broke  from  her  lips,"  and  when  spoken 
to  harshly  by  her  father,  "  with  a  low  cry  of 
anguish,  she  fell  forward  in  a  deep  swoon." 
And  yet  I  am  asked  to  believe  that  this  dis 
mal,  tear-soaked,  sobbing,  hysterical  little  girl 
has  been  adopted  by  healthy  children  as  one 
of  the  favorite  heroines  of  "  American  juvenile 
fiction." 


LITTLE  PHAU/8KKS   IN  FICTION.       101 

In  all  these  books,  the  lesson  of  self-esteem 
and  self-confidence  is  taught  on  every  page. 
Childish  faults  and  childish  virtues  are  over 
emphasized  until  they  appear  the  only  impor 
tant  things  on  earth.  Captain  Raymond,  a 
son-in-law  of  the  grown-up  Elsie,  hearing  that 
his  daughter  Lulu  lias  had  trouble  with  her 
music-teacher,  decides  immediately  that  it  is 
his  duty  to  leave  the  navy,  and  devote  himself 
to  the  training  and  discipline  of  his  young 
family ;  a  notion  which,  if  generally  accepted, 
would  soon  leave  our  country  without  de 
fenders.  On  one  occasion,  Lulu,  who  is  an 
unlucky  girl,  kicks  —  under  sore  provocation 
—  what  she  thinks  is  the  dog,  but  what  turns 
out,  awkwardly  enough,  to  bo  the  baby.  The 
incident  is  considered  sufficiently  tragic  to  fill 
most  of  the  volume,  and  this  is  the  way  it  is 
discussed  by  the  other  children,  —  children 
who  belong  to  an  order  of  beings  as  extinct, 
I  believe  and  hope,  as  the  dodo :  — 

" 6  If  Lu  had  only  controlled  her  temper 
yesterday,'  said  Max,  '  what  a  happy  family 
we  would  be.' 

"  '  Yes,'  sighed  Grace.  '  Papa  is  punishing 
her  very  hard  and  very  long  ;  but  of  course 
»  he  knows  best,  and  he  loves  her.' 


10U  VAHIA. 

u  '  Yes,  1  am  sure  lie  does/  assented  Max. 
4  80  he  won't  give  her  any  more  punishment 
than  he  thinks  she  needs.  It  will  be  a  fine 
thing  for  her,  and  all  the  rest  of  us,  too,  if  this 
hard  lesson  teaches  her  never  to  get  into  a 
passion  again/ ' 

Hotter  surely  to  kick  a  wilderness  of  babies 
than  to  wallow  in  self-righteousness  like  this ! 

One  more  serious  charge  must  be  brought 
against  these  popular  Sunday-school  stories. 
They  are  controversial,  and,  like  most  contro 
versial  tales,  they  exhibit  an  abundance  of 
ignorance  and  a  lack  of  charity  that  are 
equally  hurtful  to  a  child.  It  is  curious  to 
see  women  handle  theology  as  if  it  were 
knitting,  and  one  no  longer  wonders  at  Bus 
kin's  passionate  protest  against  such  temerity. 
"  Strange  and  miserably  strange,"  he  cries, 
"  that  while  they  are  modest  enough  to  doubt 
their  powers  and  pause  at  the  threshold  of 
sciences,  where  every  step  is  demonstrable  and 
sure,  they  will  plunge  headlong  and  without 
one  thought  of  incompetency  into  that  science 
at  which  the  greatest  men  have  trembled,  and 
in  which  the  wisest  have  erred."  But  then 
Kuskin,  as  we  all  know,  was  equally  impatient 


LITTLE   PHARISEES   IN  FICTION.       10. 'J 

of  "  converted  children  who  tcaeh  their  par 
ents,  and  converted  convicts  who  teach  honest 
men,"  and  these  two  classes  form  valuable 
ingredients  in  Sunday-school  literature.  The 
theological  arguments  of  the  "  Elsie "  books 
would  be  infinitely  diverting  if  they  were  not 
so  infinitely  acrimonious.  One  of  them,  how 
ever,  is  such  a  masterpiece  of  feminine  plead 
ing  that  its  absurdity  must  win  forgiveness 
for  its  unkindness.  A  young  girl,  having 
entered  the  church  of  Kome,  is  told  with  con 
fidence  that  her  hierarchy  is  spoken  of  in  the 
seventeen tli  chapter  of  Revelations  as ."  Baby 
lon  the  Great,  the  mother  of  harlots  and 
abominations  of  the  earth."  "  But  how  do 
you  know,"  she  asks,  not  unnaturally,  "  that 
my  church  is  meant  by  these  lines  ?  " 

" k  Because,'  is  the  triumphant  and  unassail 
able  reply,  '  she  and  she  alone  answers  to  the 
description.' ' 

This  I  consider  the  finest  piece  of  reason 
ing  that  even  Sunday-school  books  have  ever 
yielded  me.  It  is  simply  perfect;  but  there 
are  other  passages  equally  objectionable,  and 
a  little  less  amusing.  In  one  of  the  stories, 
Captain  Kaymond  undertakes  to  convert  a 


104  VARIA. 

Scotch  female  Mormon,  which  ho  docs  with 
astonishing  facility,  a  single  conversation  be 
ing  sufficient  to  bring  her  to  a  proper  frame 
of  mind.  His  most  powerful  argument  is  that 
Mormonism  must  be  a  false  religion  because 
it  so  closely  resembles  Popery,  which,  he 
tolerantly  adds,  "  has  been  well  called  Satan's 
masterpiece."  The  Scotch  woman  who,  un 
like  most  of  her  race,  is  extremely  vague  in 
her  theology,  hazards  the  assertion  that  Popery 
"forbids  men  to  marry,"  while  Mormonism 
commands  it. 

u '  The  diiTeronco  in  regard  to  that/  said 
Captain  Raymond,  '  is  not  so  great  as  may 
appear  at  first  sight.  Both  pander  to  men's 
lusts ;  both  train  children  to  forsake  their 
parents ;  both  teach  lying  and  murder,  when 
by  such  crimes  they  arc  expected  to  advance 
the  cause  of  their  church.' ' 

u  Alas  for  tho  rarity 
Of  Christian  charity 
Under  tho  sun ! " 

I  would  the  pious  women  who  so  wantonly 
and  wickedly  assail  the  creeds  in  which  their 
fellow  creatures  find  help  and  hope,  would 
learn  at  least  to  express  themselves  —  espe- 


LITTLE  PHARISEES  IN  FICTION,       105 

cially  when  their  words  are  intended  for  little 
children  to  read  —  with  some  approach  to 
decency  and  propriety. 

"  Gin  I  tliocht  Papistry  a  fause  thing,  which 
I  do"  says  the  sturdy,  gentle  Ettrick  Shep 
herd,  "  I  wadna  scruple  to  say  sac,  in  sic 
terms  as  were  consistent  wi'  glide  manners, 
and  wi'  charity  and  humility  of  heart.  But 
I  wad  ca'  nae  man  a  leear."  A  simple  lesson 
in  Christianity  and  forbearance  which  might 
be  advantageously  studied  to-day. 

There  is  no  reason  why  the  literature  of  the 
Sunday-school,  since  it  represents  an  impor 
tant  element  in  modern  bookmaking,  should 
be  uniformly  and  consistently  bad.  There  is 
no  reason  why  all  the  children  who  figure  in 
its  pages  should  be  such  impossible  little 
prigs ;  or  why  all  parents  should  be  cither 
incredibly  foolish  and  worldly  minded,  or  so 
inflexibly  serious  that  they  never  open  their 
lips  without  preaching.  There  is  no  reason 
why  people,  because  they  are  virtuous  or  re 
pentant,  should  converse  in  stilted  and  unnat 
ural  language.  A  contrite  burglar  in  one  of 
these  edifying  stories  confesses  poetically, 
44  My  sins  are  more  numerous  than  the  hairs 


KM;  VARIA. 

of  my  head  or  the  sands  of  the  seashore,"  — 
which  was  probably  true,  but  not  precisely  the 
way  in  which  the  Hill  Sykcscs  of  real  life  are 
wont  to  acknowledge  the  fact.  In  another 
tale,  an  English  one  this  time,  a  little  girl 
named  Helen  rashly  asks  her  father  for  some 
trilling  information,  lie  gives  it  with  the 
usual  grandiloquence,  and  then  adds,  by  way 
of  commendation :  "  Many  children  are  so 
foolish  as  to  be  ashamed  to  let  those  they  con 
verse  with  discover  that  they  do  not  compre 
hend  everything  that  is  said  to  them,  by  which 
means  they  often  imbibe  erroneous  ideas,  and 
perhaps  remain  in  ignorance  on  many  essential 
subjects,  when,  by  questioning  their  friends, 
they  might  easily  have  obtained  correct  and 
useful  knowledge/'  If  Helen  ever  ventured 
on  another  query  after  that,  she  deserved  her 
fate. 

Above  all,  there  1.4  no  reason  why  books 
intended  for  the  pleasure  as  well  as  for  the 
profit  of  young  children  should  be  so  melan 
choly  and  dismal  in  their  character.  Nothing 
is  more  unwholesome  than  dejection,  nothing 
more  pernicious  for  any  of  us  than  to  fix  our 
considerations  stedfastly  upon  the  seamy  side 


LITTLE  PHARISEES   IN  FICTION.       107 

of  life.  Crippled  lads,  consumptive  mothers, 
angelic  little  girls  with  spinal  complaint,  in 
fidel  fathers,  lingering  death-beds,  famished 
families,  innocent  convicts,  persecuted  school 
boys,  and  friendless  children  wrongfully  ac 
cused  of  theft,  have  held  their  own  mournfully 
for  many  years.  It  is  time  we  admitted,  even 
into  religious  fiction,  some  of  the  conscious 
joys  of  a  not  altogether  miserable  world.  I 
had  recently  in  my  service  a  pretty  little  house 
maid  barely  nineteen  years  old,  neat,  capable, 
and  good-tempered,  but  so  perpetually  down 
cast  that  she  threw  a  cloud  over  our  unreason 
ably  cheerful  household.  I  grew  melancholy 
watching  her  at  work.  One  day,  going  into 
the  kitchen,  I  saw  lying  open  on  her  chair  a 
book  she  had  just  been  reading.  It  purported 
to  be  the  experience  of  a  missionary  in  one  of 
our  large  cities,  and  was  divided  into  nine  sep 
arate  stories.  These  were  their  titles,  copied 
verbatim  on  the  spot :  — 

The  Infidel. 

The  Dying  Banker. 

The  Drunkard's  Death. 

The  Miser's  Death. 

The  Hospital. 


108  VARIA. 

The  Wanderer's  Death. 

The  Dying  Shirt-Maker. 

The  Broken  Heart. 

The  Destitute  Poor. 

What  wonder  that  my  little  maid  was  sad 
and  solemn  when  she  recreated  herself  with 
such  chronicles  as  these  ?  What  wonder  that, 
like  the  Scotchman's  famous  dog,  "life  was 
full  o'  sairiousness  "  for  her,  when  religion  and 
literature,  the  two  tilings  which  should  make 
up  the  sum  of  our  happiness,  had  conspired, 
under  the  guise  of  Sunday-school  fiction,  to 
destroy  her  gaycty  of  heart  ? 


THE  FETE  DE  GAYANT. 

As  far  as  I  have  ever  seen  provincial 
France,  it  appears  to  be  perpetually  en  fete. 
Religiously  or  patriotically,  it  is  always  cele 
brating  something ;  and  it  does  so  in  a  splen 
did  whole-hearted  fashion,  concentrating  all 
the  energy  of  a  town  into  a  few  days  or  a  few 
hours  of  ardent  demonstration.  Lcs  fetes 
rcllfjicuscs  are  without  doubt  die  most  charm 
ing  and  picturesque ;  and  the  smaller  the 
place,  the  more  curious  and  time-honored  the 
observances.  It  is  wonderful,  too,  to  noto 
the  resources  of  even  the  poorest  community. 
Auray,  with  its  few  straggling  streets,  is  little 
better  than  a  village  ;  yet  here,  on  the  Fete 
du  Sacrc  Conir,  I  saw  a  procession  so  beauti 
ful  and  so  admirably  organized  that  it  would 
have  done  credit  to  any  city  of  France.  Scores 
of  priests  and  hundreds  of  weather-beaten  men 
and  women  moved  slowly  through  the  narrow 
lanes,  or  knelt  before  the  rude  altars  that  had 
been  erected  at  every  turning.  Not  a  house 


110  VARIA. 

in  Auray  that  had  not  been  hung  with  linen 
sheets;  not  a  rood  of  ground  that  was  not 
strewn  with  flowers  and  fresh  green  leaves. 
Bands  of  little  girls,  dressed  in  blue  and 
white,  surrounded  the  statue  of  the  Madonna, 
and  the  crimson  banner  of  the  Sacred  Heart 
was  borne  by  tiny  boys,  with  red  sashes  around 
their  waists  and  wreaths  of  red  roses  on  their 
curly  heads,  looking  absurdly  like  BonfiglPs 
flower-crowned  angels.  One  solemn  child  per 
sonated  the  infant  St.  John.  He  wore  a 
scanty  goatskin,  and  no  more.  A  toy  lamb, 
white  and  woolly,  was  tucked  under  his  arm, 
and  a  Hlcudor  cross  grasped  in  his  baby  hand. 
By  his  sido  walked  an  equally  youthful  Jeanne 
d'Arc,  attired  in  a  blue  spangled  skirt  and 
a  steel  breastplate,  with  a  helmet,  a  nodding 
plume,  a  drawn  sword,  and  a  pair  of  gauzy 
wings  to  indicate  that  approaching  beatifica 
tion  which  is  the  ardent  desire  of  every  French 
Catholic. 

"  Notro  mere,  la  France,  est  do  Jeanne  la  fille," 


and  she  is  to  be  congratulated  on  so  blithely 
forgetting  the  unfilial  nature  of  her  conduct. 
At  every  altar  benediction  was  given  to  the 


THE   FETE   DE    GAYAXT.  Ill 

kneeling  throng,  and  a  regiment  of  boys  beat 
their  drums  and  sounded  their  trumpets  shrilly 
to  warn  those  who  were  too  far  away  for  sight 
that  the  sacred  moment  had  come.  It  seemed 
incredible  that  so  small  a  place  could  have 
supplied  so  many  people,  until  I  remembered 
what  an  American  is  wont  to  forget,  —  that  in 
Auray  there  were  no  two  ways  of  thinking. 
Spectators,  affected  or  disaffected,  there  were 
none.  Everybody  old  enough  and  strong 
enough  to  walk  joined  in  the  procession  ;  just 
as  everybody  at  Lourdcs  joined  in  the  great 
procession  of  the  Fete  Dieu,  when  tho  huu- 
divds  were  multiplied  to  thousands,  when  tho 
mountain  side  at  dusk  Hocmed  on  lire  with 
myriads  of  twinkling  tapers,  and  the  pilgrim 
chant,  plaintive,  monotonous,  and  unmusical, 
was  borne  by  tho  night  winds  far  away  over 
the  quiet  valley  of  the  Gave. 

On  these  occasions  1  have  been  grateful  to 
the  happy  accident,  or  design,  that  made  mo 
a  participant  in  such  scenes.  But  there  have 
been  other  days  when  provincial  towns  en  fete 
meant  the  acme  of  discomfort  for  wearied 
travelers.  It  was  no  especial  grievance,  in 
deed,  that  Compiegno  should  continue  to  celo- 


112  VA1UA. 

brate  the  14th  of  July  long  after  it  had 
merged  into  the  15th,  by  playing  martial  airs, 
and  firing  off  guns  directly  under  my  bedroom 
window.  I  felt  truly  that  I  should  have  been 
but  little  better  off  elsewhere  ;  for  there  is  not 
a  corner  of  France,  nor  a  single  French  de 
pendency,  that  does  not  go  mad  annually  with 
delight  because  a  rabble  destroyed  one  of  the 
finest  fortresses  in.  Europe.  But  it  did  seem 
hard  that  we  should  reach  Amiens  just  when 
the  combined  attractions  of  the  races  and  a 
fair  had  filled  that  quiet  spot  with  tumult  and 
commotion.  Amiens  is  not  a  town  that  takes 
kindly  to  excitement.  It  is  contemplative  in 
character,  and  boisterous  gayety  sits  uneasily 
upon  its  tranquil  streets.  Even  the  landlady 
of  our  very  comfortable  hotel  appeared  to 
recognize  and  deplore  the  incongruity  of  the 
situation.  Her  house  was  full  to  overflowing; 
her  dining-room  could  not  hold  its  famished 
guests  ;  yet,  instead  of  rejoicing,  she  bewailed 
the  hungry  crowds  who  had  wrecked  the  har 
mony  of  her  well-ordered  inn. 

*"  If  madame  had  only  come  two  days  ago," 
she  protested,  "  madame  would  then  have  seen 
Amiens  at  its  best ;  and,  moreover,  she  would 


THE  FETE  DE    GAY  ANT.  113 

have  been  properly  waited  on.  My  servants 
are  trained,  they  are  attentive,  they  are  polite, 
they  would  have  taken  care  that  madamo  had 
everything  she  required.  But  now !  What, 
then,  does  madamo  think  of  this  so  sad  dis 
order  ?  " 

Madame  assured  her  she  thought  the  ser 
vants  were  doing  all  that  could  be  required  of 
mortal  men ;  and,  indeed,  these  nimble  crea 
tures  fairly  Hew  from  guest  to  guest,  and  from 
room  to  room.  I  never  saw  one  of  them  even 
lapse  into  a  walk.  I  tried  to  describe  to  her 
the  behavior  of  domestics  in  our  own  hind, 
recalling  to  memory  a  sudden  invasion  of  one 
of  the  Yellowstone  Park  hotels  by  a  band  of 
famished  tourists,  —  their  weary  waiting,  their 
humble  attitude,  their  meek  appeals  for  food, 
and  the  stolid  indifference  of  the  negro  waiters 
to  their  most  urgent  needs.  But  this  imperi 
ous  little  Frenchwoman  merely  held  up  her 
hands  in  horror  at  such  anarchical  conduct. 
A  mob  of  communists  engaged  in  demolishing 
the  cathedral  of  Amiens  would  have  seemed 
loss  terrible  to  her  than  a  mob  of  servants  re 
fusing  to  wait  swiftly  upon  hungry  travelers. 
She  was  so  serious  in  her  anxiety  for  our  com- 


114  VARfA. 

fort  that  her  mind  appeared  visibly  relieved 
when,  on  the  second  day,  we  decided  that  we 
too  were  weary  of  noise  and  excitement,  and 
would  move  on  that  afternoon  to  Douai. 
There,  at  least,  we  told  ourselves,  we  should 
find  the  drowsy  quiet  we  desired.  The  image 
of  the  dull  old  town  —  which  we  had  never 
seen  —  rose  up  alluringly  before  us.  We 
pictured  even  the  station,  tranquil  and  empty 
like  so  many  stations  in  rural  France,  with  a 
leisurely  little  engine  sauntering  in  occasion 
ally,  and  a  solitary  porter  roused  from  his  nap, 
and  coining  forward,  surprised  but  smiling,  to 
handle  our  numerous  bags.  These  pretty  fan 
cies  soothed  our  nerves  and  beguiled  our  idle 
ness  until  the  three  hours'  trip  was  over,  and 
Douai  was  reached  at  last.  Douai !  Yes ; 
but  .Douai  in  a  state  of  apparent  frenzy,  with 
a  surging  crowd  whose  uproar  could  be  hoard 
above  our  engine's  shriek,  —  hundreds  of 
people  rushing  hither  and  thither,  climbing 
into  curs,  clamoring  over  friends,  laughing, 
shouting,  blowing  trumpets,  and  behaving 
generally  in  a  fashion  which  made  Amiens 
silent  by  comparison.  For  one  moment  we 
stood  stunned  by  the  noise  and  confusion  ;  and 


THE   FETE    DE    (JAY ANT.  115 

then  the  horrid  truth  forced  itself  upon  our 
unwilling  minds  :  Douai  was  en  fete. 

We  made  our  way  through  the  throng  of 
people  into  the  square  outside  the  station,  and 
took  counsel  briefly  with  one  another.  We 
were  tired,  we  were  hungry,  and  it  was  grow 
ing  late ;  but  should  we  ignore  these  melan 
choly  conditions,  and  push  bravely  on  for 
Lille  ?  Lille,  says  Baedeker,  has  "  two  hun 
dred  thousand  inhabitants,"  and  cities  of  that 
size  have  grown  too  big  for  play.  We  thought 
of  the  discomforts  which  probably  awaited  us 
at  Douai  in  a  meagre  inn,  crowded  with  noisy 
bourgeois,  and  were  turning  resolutely  back, 
when  suddenly  there  came  the  sound  of  drums 
playing  a  gay  and  martial  air,  and  in  another 
minute,  surrounded  by  a  clamorous  mob,  the 
Sire  de  Gay  ant  and  his  family  moved  slowly 
into  sight. 

Thirty  feet  high  was  the  Sire  de  Gayant, 
and  his  nodding  plumes  overtopped  the  hum 
ble  roofs  by  which  ho  passed.  His  steel 
breastplate  glittered  in  the  evening  sun  ;  his 
mighty  mace  looked  like  a  May-pole  ;  his  coun 
tenance  was  grave  and  stern.  The  human 
pygmies  by  his  side  betrayed  their  insignifi- 


11G  VARIA. 

canco  at  every  step.  They  ran  backward  and 
forward,  making  all  the  foolish  noises  they 
could.  They  rode  on  hobby-horses.  They 
played  ridiculous  antics.  They  were  but  chil 
dren,  after  all,  gamboling  irresponsibly  at  the 
feet  of  their  own  Titanic  toy.  Behind  the 
Sire  do  Gayant  came  his  wife,  in  brocaded 
gown,  with  imposing  farthingale  and  stom 
acher.  Pearls  wreathed  her  hair  and  fell  upon 
her  massive  bosom.  Earrings  a  hand  breadth 
in  size  hung  from  her  ears,  and  a  fan  as  big 
as  a  fire-screen  was  held  lightly  by  a  silver 
chain.  Like  Lady  Corysande,  "  her  approach 
ing  mien  was  full  of  majesty  ; "  yet  she  looked 
affable  and  condescending,  too,  as  befitted  a 
dame  of  parts  and  noble  birth.  Her  children 
manifested  in  their  bearing  more  of  pride  and 
less  of  dignity.  There  was  even  something 
theatrical  in  the  velvet  cap  and  swinging  cloak 
of  .her  only  son  ;  and  Mademoiselle  Gayant 
held  her  head  erect  in  conscious  complacency, 
while  her  long  brown  ringlets  fluttered  in  the 
breeze. 

Of  course  tlio  village  girls 
Who  envy  me  my  curls," 

she  seemed  to  murmur  as  she  passed  stiffly  by. 


THE   FETE   DE    GAY  ANT.  117 

Happily,  however,  there  was  still  another 
member  of  this  ancient  family,  more  popular 
and  more  well  beloved  than  all  the  rest,  — 
Mademoiselle  Therese,  "  la  petite  Jiinbin" 
who  for  two  hundred  years  has  been  the  friend 
and  idol  of  every  child  in  Douai.  A  sprightly 
and  attractive  little  girl  was  Mademoiselle 
Therese,  barely  eight  feet  high,  and  wearing 
a  round  cap  and  spotless  pinafore.  In  her 
hand  she  carried  a  paper  windmill,  that  an 
tique  Douai  toy  with  which  we  see  the  angels 
and  the  Holy  Innocents  amusing  themselves 
in  Bcllegambe's  beautiful  old  picture,  the 
Altar-piece  of  Anchin.  She  ran  hither  and 
thither  with  uncertain  footsteps,  pausing  now 
and  then  to  curtsy  prettily  to  some  admiring 
friends  in  a  doorway  ;  and  whenever  the  pres 
sure  of  the  crowd  stopped  her  progress,  the 
little  children  clamored  to  be  held  up  in  their 
fathers'  arms  to  kiss  her  round,  smooth 
cheeks.  One  by  one  they  were  lifted  in  the 
air,  and  one  by  one  I  saw  them  put  their  arms 
around  la  Binbin's  neck,  and  embrace  her  so 
heartily  that  I  wondered  how  she  kept  herself 
clean  and  uncrumpled  amid  these  manifold 
caresses.  As  she  went  by,  the  last  of  that 


118  VAll/A. 

strange  procession,  we  moved  after  her,  with 
out  another  thought  of  Lille  and  its  comfort 
able  hotels.  Comfort,  forsooth !  Were  wo 
not  back  in  the  fifteenth  century,  when  com 
fort  had  still  to  be  invented?  Was  that  not 
the  Song  of  Gayant  which  the  drums  were 
boating  so  gayly  ?  And  who  yet  ever  turned 
their  backs  upon  Douai  when  the  famous  Kanz 
des  Douaisiens  was  ringing  triumphantly  in 
their  cars  ? 

For  this  little  French  town,  smaller  than 
many  a  ten-year-old  city  in  the  West,  has  an 
ancient  and  honorable  past ;  and  her  martial 
deeds  have  been  written  down  on  more  than 
one  page  of  her  country's  history.  The  Fete 
dc  Gayant  is  old  ;  so  old  that  its  origin  has 
been  lost  in  an  obscurity  which  a  number  of 
industrious  scholars  have  tried  in  vain  to  pene 
trate. 

"  Co  quo  c'est  quo  Gayant  ?     Ma  foi,  je  n'en  sais  ri«n. 
Co  quo  c'ost  quo  Gayant  ?     Nul  no  lo  salt  en  Flandro." 

The  popular  belief  is  that  a  knight  of  gigantic 
si/o  fought  valorously  in  behalf  of  Douai 
when  the  city,  spent  and  crippled,  made  her 
splendid  defense  against  Louis  XL,  and  that 
his  name  is  still  preserved  with  gratitude  by 


THE  FETE  DE    GAY  ANT.  119 

the  people  whom  he  helped  to  save.  Certain 
it  is  that  the  fete  dates  from  1479,  the  year 
that  Louis  was  repulsed  ;  and  whether  or  not 
a  real  Gayant  ever  stood  upon  the  walls,  there 
is  little  doubt  that  the  procession  celebrates 
that  hard-won  victory.  But  the  Church  has 
not  been  backward  in  claiming  the  hero 
for  her  own,  and  identifying  him  with  St. 
Maurand,  the  blessed  patron  of  Douai.  St. 
Maurand,  it  is  said,  fought  for  the  welfare 
of  his  town  as  St.  I  ago  fought  for  the  glory  of 
Spain  ;  and  there  is  a  charming  legend  to 
show  how  keenly  he  watched  over  the  people 
who  trusted  to  his  care.  In  155G,  on  the 
night  following  the  feast  of  the  Epiphany, 
Admiral  Coligny  planned  to  surprise  the  city, 
which,  ignorant  of  its  danger,  lay  sleeping  at 
the  mercy  of  its  foe.  But  just  as  St.  George, 
St.  Mark,  and  St.  Nicholas  aroused  the  old 
fisherman,  and  went  out  into  the  storm  to  do 
battle  with  demons  for  the  safety  of  Venice, 
so  St.  Maurand  prepared  to  defeat  the  crafty 
assailant  of  Douai.  At  midnight  he  appeared 
by  the  bedside  of  the  monk  whose  duty  it  was 
to  ring  the  great  bells  of  St.  Amc,  and  bade 
him  arise  and  call  the  brethren  to  matins. 


120  VAR/A. 

The  monk,  failing  to  recognize  the  august 
character  of  his  visitor,  protested  drowsily 
that  it  was  too  early,  and  that,  after  the  fatigue 
and  lengthy  devotions  of  the  feast,  it  would 
be  but  humanity  to  allow  the  monastery  an 
other  hour  of  slumber.  St.  Maurand,  how 
ever,  insisted  so  sternly  and  so  urgently  that 
the  poor  lay  brother,  seeing  no  other  way  to 
rid  himself  of  importunity,  arose,  stumbled 
into  the  belfry,  and  laid  his  hands  upon  the 
dangling  ropes.  But  hardly  had  he  given 
them  the  first  faint  pull  when,  with  a  mighty 
vibration,  the  bells  swung  to  and  fro  as 
though  spirits  were  hurling  them  through  the 
air.  So  furiously  were  they  tossed  that  the 
bra/en  clangor  of  their  tongues  rang  out  into 
the  night  with  an  intensity  of  menace  that 
awoke  every  man  in  Douai  to  a  swift  recog 
nition  of  his  peril.  Soldiers  sprang  to  arms; 
citizens  swarmed  out  of  their  comfortable 
homes  ;  and  while  the  bells  still  pealed  forth 
their  terrible  summons,  those  who  were  first 
at  the  defenses  saw  for  one  instant  the  blessed 
St.  Maurand  standing  in  shining  armor  on  the 
ramparts,  guarding  the  city  of  his  adoption  as 
St.  Michael  guards  the  hidden  gates  of  para 
dise. 


THE   FETE   DE   GAY  ANT. 

So  the  Church  will  have  it  that  the  knight 
Gayant  is  no  other  than  the  holy  son  of  Adul- 
bald ;  and  as  for  Madame  Gayant  and  her 
family,  who  seem  like  a  questionable  encum 
brance  upon  saintship,  it  is  clearly  proved  that 
Gayant  had  neither  wife  nor  child  until  1G65, 
when  the  good  people  of  Douai  abruptly  ended 
his  cheerful  days  of  celibacy.  Indeed,  there 
are  historians  so  lost  to  all  sense  of  honor  and 
propriety  as  to  insist  that  this  beloved  Titan 
owes  his  origin  neither  to  Flemish  heroism  nor 

o 

to  the  guardianship  of  saints,  but  to  the  efforts 
mado  by  the  Spanish  conquerors  of  Douai  to 
establish  popular  pastimes  resembling  those  of 
Spain.  According  to  these  base-minded  anti 
quarians,  Gayant  was  an  invention  of  Charles 
V.,  who  added  a  variety  of  pageants  to  the 
yearly  procession  with  which  the  city  cele 
brated  its  victory  over  Louis  XI. ;  and  when 
the  Spaniards  were  finally  driven  from  the 
Hoil,  the  knight  remained  as  a  popular  hero, 
vaguely  associated  with  earlier  deeds  of  arms. 
That  he  was  an  object  of  continual  solicitude 
—  and  expense  —  is  proven  by  a  number  of 
entries  in  the  archives  of  Douai.  In  1605, 
seven  florins  were  paid  to  the  five  men  who 


litt  VA1UA. 

carried  him  through  the  streets,  and  twenty 
pastars  to  the  two  boys  who  danced  before  him, 
to  say  nothing  of  an  additional  outlay  of  six 
florins  for  the  white  dancing-shoes  provided 
for  them.  Moreover,  this  being  his  wedding 
year,  two  hundred,  and  eighty-three  florins  —  a 
large  sum  for  .those  days  —  were  spent  on 
Madame  Gayant's  gown,  besides  seventeen 
florins  for  her  wig,  and  over  forty  florins  for 
her  jewels  and  other  decorations.  A  wife  is 
ever  a  costly  luxury,  but  when  she  chances  to 
be  over  twenty  feet  high,  her  trousseau  be 
comes  a  mattor  for  serious  consideration.  In 
1715,  the  price  of  labor  having  risen,  and  the 
knight's  family  having  increased,  it  cost  thirty- 
three  florins  to  carry  them  in  procession, 
Mademoiselle  Therese,  who  was  then  too  young 
to  walk,  being  drawn  in  a  wagon,  probably  for 
the  first  time.  The  repainting  of  faces,  the 
repairing  of  armor,  the  replacing  of  lost  pearls 
or  broken  fans,  are  all  accounted  for  in  these 
careful  annals ;  and  it  is  through  them,  also, 
that  we  learn  how  the  Church  occasionally 
withdrew  her  favor  from  the  Sire  de  Gayant, 
and  even  went  so  far  as  to  place  him  under  a 
ban.  M.  Guy  de  Seve,  Bishop  of  Arras,  in 


THE  FETE  DK   GAYAXT.  123 

1G99,  and  M.  Louis  Frangois  MarcJIilaire  do 
Conzie,  Bishop  of  Arras  in  1770,  were  both 
of  the  opinion  that  the  fete  had  grown  too 
secular,  not  to  say  licentious  in  its  character, 
and,  in  spite  of  clamorous  discontent,  the  pro 
cession  was  sternly  prohibited.  But  French 
towns  are  notably  wedded  to  their  idols.  Douai 
never  ceased  to  love  and  venerate  her  gigantic 
knight;  and  after  a  time,  perhaps  through  the 
good  offices  of  St.  Maurand,  he  overcame  hi* 
enemies,  reestablished  his  character  with  tho 
Church,  and  may  be  seen  to-day,  as  we  had 
the  happiness  of  seeing  him,  carried  in  tri 
umph  through  those  ancient  streets  that  wel 
comed  him  four  hundred  years  ago. 

The  Fete  dc  Gay  ant  is  not  a  brief  affair, 
like  Guy  Fawkes  day  or  the  Fourth  of  July. 
It  lasts  from  the  8th  of  July  until  the  llth, 
and  is  made  the  occasion  of  prolonged  rejoicing 
and  festivity.  In  the  public  square,  boys  are 
tilting  like  knights  of  old,  or  playing  antiquated 
games  that  have  descended  to  them  from  their 
forefathers.  Greased  poles  hung  with  flutter 
ing  prizes  tempt  the  unwary;  tiny  donkeys, 
harnessed  and  garlanded  with  flowers,  are  led 
around  by  children  ;  and  a  discreet  woman  in 


124  VARIA. 

spangled  tights  sits  languidly  on  a  trapeze, 
waiting  for  the  sous  to  be  collected  before  be 
ginning  her  performance.  From  this  post  of 
vantage  she  espies  us  standing  on  the  outskirts 
of  the  crowd,  and  sends  her  little  son,  a  pretty 
child,  brave  in  gilt  and  tinsel,  to  beg  from  us. 
As  it  chances,  I  have  given  all  my  sous  to 
earlier  petitioners,  and  I  open  my  collapsed 
pocket  book  to  show  him  how  destitute  I  am. 
With  a  swift  corresponding  gesture  he  turns 
his  little  tin  canister  upside  down,  and  shakes 
it  plaintively,  proving  that  it  is  even  emptier 
than  iny  purse.  This  appeal  is  irresistible. 
In  the  dearth  of  coppers,  a  silver  coin  is  found 
for  him,  which  his  mother  promptly  acknow 
ledges  by  going  conscientiously  through  the 
whole  of  her  slender  repertoire.  Meanwhile, 
the  child  chatters  fluently  with  us.  lie  travels 
all  the  time,  he  tells  us,  and  has  been  to  Italy 
and  Switzerland.  Ilis  father  can  speak  Ital 
ian  and  a  little  English.  He  likes  the  English 
people  best  of  all,  —  a  compliment  to  our 
supposed  nationality;  they  are  the  richest, 
most  generous,  most  charming  and  beautiful 
ladies  in  the  world.  lie  says  this,  looking, 
not  at  my  companions,  who  in  some  sort  merit 


THE   FETE   DE   GAY  ANT.  125 

the  eulogium,  but  straight  at  me,  with  a  robust 
guile  that  is  startling  in  its  directness.  I  have 
given  the  franc.  To  me  is  due  the  praise. 
Poor  little  lad !  It  must  be  a  precarious  and 
slender  income  earned  by  that  jaded  mother, 
even  in  time  of  fete ;  for  provincial  France, 
though  on  pleasure  bent,  hath,  like  Mrs. 
Gilpin,  a  very  frugal  mind.  She  does  not 
fling  money  about  with  British  prodigality, 
nor  consume  gallons  of  beer  with  German 
thirst,  nor  sink  her  scanty  savings  in  lottery 
tickets  with  Italian  fatuity.  No,  she  drinks 
her  single  glass  of  wine,  or  cider,  or  syrup 
and  water,  and  looks  placidly  at  all  that  may 
be  seen  for  nothing,  and  experiences  the  joys 
of  temperance.  She  knows  that  her  strength 
lies  in  husbanding  her  resources,  and  that  vast 
are  the  powers  of  thrift. 

Meanwhile,  each  day  brings  its  allotted  di 
versions.  Gayly  decorated  little  boats  are 
sailing  on  the  Scarpe,  and  fancying  themselves 
a  regatta.  Archers  are  contesting  for  prizes 
in  the  Place  St.  Amu,  where,  hundreds  of  years 
ago,  their  forefathers  winged  their  heavy  bolts. 
A  carrousel  velocipvdique  is  to  be  followed  by 
a  ball ;  carrier  pigeons  are  being  freed  in  the 


126  VARIA. 

Place  Carnot ;  a  big  balloon  is  to  ascend  from 
the  esplanade ;  and  excellent  concerts  are 
played  every  afternoon  in  the  pretty  Jardin 
des  Plantes.  It  is  hard  to  make  choice  among 
so  many  attractions,  especially  as  two  days  out 
of  the  four  tlio  Sire  do  (iuyant  and  his  family 
march  through  the  streets,  and  draw  us  irresist 
ibly  after  them.  But  we  see  the  archers,  and 
the  pigeons,  and  the  balloon,  which  takes  three 
hours  to  get  ready,  and  three  minutes  to  be 
out  of  sight,  carrying  away  in  its  car  a  grizzled 
aeronaut,  and  an  adventurous  young  woman 
who  embraces  all  her  friends  with  dramatic 
fervor,  and  unfurls  the  flag  of  France  as  she 
ascends,  to  tho  unutterable  admiration  of  the 
crowd.  We  hoar  a  concert,  also,  sitting  com 
fortably  in  the  shade,  and  thinking  how  plea 
sant  it  would  be  to  have  a  glass  of  beer  to  help 
the  music  along.  But  the  natural  aflinity,  the 
close  and  enduring  friendship  between  music 
and  beer  which  the  Germans  understand  so 
well,  the  French  have  yet  to  discover.  They 
are  learning  to  drink  this  noble  beverage  —  in 
small  doses  —  and  to  forgive  it  its  Teutonic 
flavor.  I  have  seen  half  a  dozen  men  sitting 
in  front  of  a  restaurant  at  Lille  or  at  Rouen, 


TUB   FETE   DE    GAY  ANT.  127 

each  with  a  tiny  glass  of  beer  before  him ;  but 
I  have  never  beheld  it  poured  generously  out 
to  the  thunderous  accompaniment  of  a  band. 
Even  at  Marseilles,  where,  faithful  to  destiny, 
wo  encountered  a  musical  fete  so  big  and 
grand  that  three  hotels  rejected  us,  and  the 
cabmen  asked  five  francs  an  hour,  —  even 
amid  this  tumult  of  sweet  sounds,  from  which 
there  was  no  escaping,  we  failed  ignominiously 
when  we  sought  to  hearten  ourselves  to  a 
proper  state  of  receptivity  with  beer. 

At  the  Douai  concerts  no  one  dreamed  of 
drinking  anything.  The  townspeople  sat  in 
decorous  little  groups  under  the  trees,  talking 
furtively  when  the  loudncss  of  the  .clarionets 
permitted  them,  and  reserving  their  enthusiastic 
applause  for  the  Chant  do  Gayant,  with  which, 
as  in  honor  bound,  each  entertainment  camo  to 
a  close.  Young  girls,  charmingly  dressed,  lin 
gered  by  their  mothers*  sides,  never  even  lift 
ing  their  dark  eyes  to  note  the  iine  self-appre 
ciation  of  the  men  who  passed  them.  If  they 
spoke  at  all,  it  was  in  fluttering  whispers  to 
one  another ;  if  they  looked  at  anything,  it  was 
at  one  another's  gowns.  They  are  seldom 
pretty,  these  sallow  daughters  of  France ;  yet, 


128  \'AK/A. 

like  Gauticr's  Carmen,  their  ugliness  has  in  it 
a  grain  of  salt  from  that  ocean  out  of  which 
Venus  rose.  No  girls  in  the  whole  wide  world 
lead  duller  lives  than  theirs.  They  have  nei 
ther  the  pleasures  of  a  large  town  nor  the 
freedom  of  a  little  one.  They  may  not  walk 
with  young  companions,  even  of  their  own  sex. 
They  may  not  so  much  as  to  go  church  alone. 
Novels,  romances,  poetry,  plays,  operas,  all 
things  that  could  stimulate  their  imaginations 
and  lift  them  out  of  the  monotonous  routine  of 
life,  are  sternly  prohibited.  Perpetual  espion 
age  forbids  the  healthy  growth  of  character 
and  faculty,  which  demand  some  freedom  and 
solitude  for  development.  The  strict  seclu 
sion  of  a  convent  school  is  exchanged  for  a 
colorless  routine  of  small  duties  and  smaller 
pleasures.  And  yet  these  young  girls,  bound 
hand  and  foot  by  the  narrowest  conventionali 
ties,  are  neither  foolish  nor  insipid.  A  dawn 
ing  intelligence,  finer  than  humored  precocity 
can  ever  show,  sits  on  each  tranquil  brow. 
When  they  speak,  it  is  with  propriety  and 
grace.  In  the  restrained  alertness  of  their 
brown  eyes,  in  their  air  of  simplicity  and  self- 
command,  in  the  instinctive  elegance  of  their 


THE   FETE   DE    GAY  ANT.  129 

dress,  one  may  read,  plainly  written,  the  subtle 
possibilities  of  the  future.  That  offensive  and 
meaningless  phrase,  the  woman  problem,  is 
seldom  heard  in  France,  where  all  problems 
solve  themselves  more  readily  than  elsewhere. 
Midway  between  the  affectionate  subservience 
of  German  wives  and  daughters  and  the  gay 
arrogance  of  our  own,  with  more  self-reliance 
than  the  English,  and  a  clearer  understanding 
of  their  position  than  all  the  other  three  have 
ever  grasped,  Frenchwomen  iind  little  need 
to  wrangle  for  privileges  which  they  may 
easily  command.  The  resources  of  tact  and 
good  taste  are  well-nigh  infinite,  and  to  them 
is  added  a  capacity  for  administration  and 
affairs  which  makes  the  French  gentleman 
respect  his  wife's  judgment,  and  places  the 
French  shopkeeper  at  tin*  mercy  of  his  spouse. 
In  whatever  walk  of  life  these  young  provin 
cial  girls  are  destined  to  tread,  they  will  have 
no  afflicting  doubts  as  to  the  limits  of  their 
usefulness.  They  will  probably  never  even 
pause  to  ask  themselves  what  men  would  do 
without  them,  nor  to  point  a  lesson  vainglori- 
ously  from  the  curious  fact  that  Douai  gave 
Gayant  a  wife. 


CAKES  AND  ALE. 

"  The  Muses  smell  of  wine." 

IT  is  with  reasonable  hesitation  that  I  ven 
ture  upon  a  theme  which  no  pleading  words 
of  Horace  can  ever  make  acceptable  to  a 
nineteenth-century  conscience.  The  world  at 
present  is  full  of  people  to  whom  drinking- 
songs  are  inseparably  associated  with  drink 
ing  habits,  and  drinking  habits  with  downright 
drunkcimes* ;  and  it  would  be  hard  to  per 
suade  them  that  the  sweet  Muses  have  never 
smiled  upon  the  joyless  bestiality  which 
wrecks  the  lives  of  men.  Even  in  days  long 
past,  when  consciences  had  still  to  bo  devel 
oped,  and  poets  sang  that  wine  was  made  to 
scatter  the  cares  of  earth,  the  crowning  grace 
of  self-control  was  always  the  prize  of  youth. 
When  little  Aristion,  her  curls  crowned  with 
roses,  drained  the  contents  of  three  golden 
goblets  before  beginning  her  dance,  she  was 
probably  as  careful  to  avoid  unseemly  intoxi 
cation  as  is  the  college  athlete  of  to-day  train- 


CAKES   AND   ALE.  131 

ing  for  the  gentle  game  of  football ;  yet  none 
the  less  her  image  is  abhorrent  to  our  peculiar 
morality,  which  can  ill  endure  such  irresponsi 
ble  gayety  of  heart.  The  perpetual  intrusion 
of  ethics  into  art  has  begotten  a  haunting 
anxiety  lest  perchance  for  one  glad  half-hour 
we  should  forget  that  it  is  our  duty  to  bo 
serious.  I  had  this  lesson  forcibly  impressed 
upon  me  a  few  years  ago  when  I  wrote  a  harm 
less  essay  upon  war-songs,  and  a  virtuous  critic 
reminded  me,  with  tearful  earnestness,  that 
while  there  was  nothing  really  hurtful  in  such 
poetry,  it  would  be  better  far  if  I  turned  my 
attention  to  the  nobler  contest  which  Lady 
Somerset  was  then  waging  so  valiantly  against 
intemperance. 

Now,  to  the  careless  mind,  it  does  not  at 
first  sight  appear  that  war-songs,  considered 
solely  in  their  literary  aspect,  have  any  espe 
cial  connection  with  intemperance.  I  am  not 
even  prepared  to  admit  that  drinking-songs 
can  be  held  responsible  for  drink.  When 
Englishmen  began  to  cultivate  habits  of  con 
sistent  insobriety,  they  ceased  to  sing  of  wine. 
The  eighteenth  century  witnessed,  not  only 
the  steady  increase  of  drunkenness  in  every 


132  VA1UA. 

walk  of  life,  but  also  its  willful  and  ostenta 
tious  defense.  From  the  parson  to  the  plough 
man,  from  the  peer  to  the  poacher,  all  classes 
drank  deeply,  and  with  the  comfortable  con 
sciousness  that  they  were  playing  manly  parts. 
It  was  one  of  the  first  lessons  taught  to  youth, 
and  fathers  encouraged  their  sons  —  vainly 
sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  Horace  "Walpole 
—  to  empty  as  many  bottles  as  their  steady 
hands  could  hold.  "  A  young  fellow  had  bet 
ter  be  thrice  drunk  in  one  day,"  says  honest 
Sir  Hildcbraiul  to  Frank  Osbaldistone,  "than 
sneak  sober  to  bed  like  a  Presbyterian."  And 
there  is  true  paternal  pride  in  the  contrast  the 
squire  draws  between  this  strange,  abstemi 
ous  relative  from  town  and  his  own  stalwart, 
country-bred  boys,  "  who  would  have  been 
all  as  great  milksops  as  yourself,  Nevey," 
lie  heartily  declares,  "  if  I  had  not  nursed 
them,  as  one  may  say,  on  the  toast  and 
tankard." 

Nevertheless,  it  was  not  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  with  its  deep  potations,  and  its  nightly 
collapses  of  squire  and  squireen  under  their 
mahogany  tables,  that  the  gay  English  drink 
ing-songs  were  written.  The  eighteenth-cen- 


CAKKS   AND   ALE.  133 

tury  drinker  had  no  time  and  no  breath  to 
waste  in  singing.  Burns,  indeed,  a  rare  ex 
ception,  gave  to  Scotland  those  reckless  verses 
which  Mr.  Arnold  found  "insincere"  and 
"unsatisfactory/*  and  from  which  more  aus 
tere  critics  have  shrunk  in  manifest  disquiet. 
Perhaps  the  reproach  of  insincerity  is  not 
altogether  undeserved.  There  are  times  when 
Burns  seems  to  exult  over  the  moral  discom 
fort  of  his  reader,  and  this  is  not  the  spirit 
in  which  good  love-songs,  or  good  war-songs, 
or  good  drinking-songs  are  written.  Yet  who 
shall  approach  the  humor  of  that  transfigured 
proverb  which  Solomon  would  not  have  recog 
nized  for  his  own ;  or  the  honest  exultation 
of  those  two  lines  :  — 

"  O  Whiskey  !  soul  o'  plays  an'  pranks ! 
Accept  a  bardie's  grutof  u'  thanks !  " 

or,  best  of  all,  the  genial  gayety  of  "  Willie 
Brew'd  a  Peck  o'  Maut,"  —  sovereign,  says 
Mr.  Saintsbury,  of  the  poet's  Bacchanalian 
verse  ?  — 

"  0,  Willio  brew'd  a  peck  o'  nmut, 

And  Rob  and  Allan  came  to  proe  ; 
Three  blither  hearts,  that  lec-lang  night, 
Ye  wadnu  find  in  Christendie." 


134  VAR1A. 

Here  at  last  is  the  true  ring,  without  bravado, 
without  conceit,  without  bestiality,  —  only  the 
splendid  high  spirits,  the  foolish,  unhesitating 
happiness  of  youth :  — 

"  It  in  the  moon,  I  ken  her  horn, 

That 's  bliiikiu'  in  the  lift  sae  hie ; 
She  shines  sae  bright  to  wylo  us  liame, 
But,  by  my  sooth,  she  '11  wait  a  wee  !  " 

When  Burns  sings  in  this  strain,  even  those 
who  wear  the  blue  ribbon  may  pause  and 
listen  kindly,  remembering,  if  they  like,  before 
leaving  the  world  of  "  Scotch  wit,  Scotch 
religion,  and  Scotch  drink/'  so  repellent  to 
Mr.  Arnold's  pitiless  good  taste,  how  another 
jovial  north-countryman  has  defined  for  them 
the  inestimable  virtue  of  temperance.  "  Nae 
man  shall  ever  stop  a  nicht  in  my  house,"  says 
the  Ettrick  Shepherd,  "without  partakin'  o' 
the  best  that 's  in  it,  be  't  meat  or  drink ;  and 
if  the  coof  canna  drink  three  or  four  tummlers 
or  jugs  o'  toddy,  lie  has  nae  business  in  the 
Forest.  Now,  sir,  I  ca'  that  no  an  abstemious 
life,  —  for  why  should  any  man  be  abstemious  ? 
—  but  I  ca'  *t  a  temperate  life,  and  o'  a'  the 
virtues,  there 's  nane  mair  friendly  to  man  than 
Temperance." 


CAKES  AND  ALE.  135 

Friendly  indeed!  Why,  viewed  in  this 
geniul  light,  she  is  good-fellowship  itself,  and 
hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  the  smiling 
nymph  whom  Horace  saw  in  the  greenwood* 
learning  attentively  the  strains  dictated  to  her 
by  the  vine-crowned  god  of  wine. 

The  best  of  the  English  drinking-songs  were 
written  by  the  dramatists  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  men  who  trolled  out  their  vigorous 
sentiments,  linked  sweetly  together  in  flowing 
verse,  without  the  smallest  thought  or  fear  of 
shocking  anybody.  Frankly  indecorous,  they 
invite  the  whole  wide  world  to  drink  with 
them,  to  empty  the  brimming  tankard  passed 
from  hand  to  hand,  and  to  reel  home  through 
the  frosty  streets,  where  the  watchman  grins 
at  their  unsteady  steps,  and  quiet  sleepers, 
awakened  from  dull  dreams,  echo  with  drowsy 
sympathy  the  last  swelling  cadence  of  their 
uproarious  song.  Where  there  is  no  public 
sentiment  to  defy,  even  Bacchanalian  rioters 
and  Bacchanalian  verses  cease  to  be  delimit. 
What  admirable  good  temper  and  sincerity  in 
Fletcher's  generous  importunity ! 

"  Drink  to-duy,  and  drown  all  sorrow, 
You  shall  purhaps  not  do  it  to-morrow: 


136  VARIA. 

Best,  while  you  have  it,  use  your  breath ; 
There  is  no  drinking  after  death. 

"  Then  let  us  swill,  boys,  for  our  health, 
Who  drinks  well,  loves  the  commonwealth. 
And  he  that  will  to  bed  go  sober 
Falls  with  the  leaf  still  in  October." 

Upon  this  song  successive  changes  have  been 
rung,  until  now  its  variations  are  bewildering, 
and  to  it  we  owe  the  ever  popular  and  utterly 
indefensible  glee  roared  out  for  generations 
by  many  a  lusty  tavern  chorus :  — 

"  He  who  goes  to  bed,  and  goes  to  bed  sober, 
Falls  as  the  leaves  do,  and  dies  in  October ; 
Hut  ho  who  goes  to  bod,  and  goes  to  bod  mellow, 
Lives  as  ho  ought  to  do,  and  dies  an  honest  fellow/' 

The  most  affectionate  solicitude  is  continu 
ally  manifested  by  seventeenth-century  poets 
lest  perchance  unthinking  mortals  should  neg 
lect  or  overlook  their  opportunities  of  drinking, 
and  so  forfeit  their  full  share  of  pleasure  in 
a  pleasant  world. 

"  Gather  ye  rosebuds  while  ye  may," 

is  as  much  the  motto  of  the  drinker  as  of  the 
lover,  and  the  mutability  of  life  forever  warns 
him  against  wasting  its  flying  moments  in  un 
profitable  soberness. 


CAKES  AND   ALE.  137 

"  Not  long  youth  lastcth, 
And  old  ago  hastcth. 

"  All  things  invite  us 
Now  to  delight  us," 

is  the  Elizabethan  rendering  of  Father  Wil 
liam's  counsel ;  and  the  hospitable  ghost  in 
Fletcher's  "  Lovers'  Progress,"  who,  being 
dead,  must  know  whereof  he  speaks,  conjures 
his  guests  to 

"  Drink  apace,  while  breath  you  have, 
You  '11  find  but  cold  drink  in  the  grave." 

Apart  from  life's  brevity  and  inconstancy, 
there  is  always  the  incentive  of  patriotism  and 
national  prido  summoning  the  reveler  to  deep 
and  ever  deeper  potations.  It  is  thus-  ho 
proves  himself  a  true  son  of  the  soil,  a  loyal 
and  law-abiding  Englishman. 

"  We  '11  drink  off  our  liquor  while  we  can  stand, 
And  hey  for  the  honour  of  Old  England !  " 

sang  the  Devonshire  harvesters  two  hundred 
years  ago,  connecting  in  some  beery  fashion 
the  glory  of  their  native  isle  with  the  gallons 
of  home-brewed  ale  they  consumed  so  cheer 
fully  in  her  name ;  and  the  same  sentiment  is 
more  intelligibly  embodied  in  that  graceless 


138  VARIA. 

song  of  Shadwell's  which  establishes  conclu 
sively  the  duty  of  an  honest  citizen  and  tax 
payer  :  — 

"  The  king's  most  faithful  subjects,  we 

In  service  are  not  dull, 
Wo  drink  to  show  our  loyalty, 

And  make  his  coffers  full. 
Would  all  his  subjects  drink  like  us, 

We  'd  make  him  richer  far, 
More  powerful  and  more  prosperous 

Than  Eastern  monarchs  are." 

It  may  be  noted,  by  way  of  illustration,  that 
Dry  den,  in  his  "  Vindication  of  the  Duke  of 
Guise,'*  remarks  somewhat  vindictively  that 
the  only  service  Shadwell  could  render  the 
king  was  to  increase  his  revenue  by  drinking. 
Finally,  in  England,  as  in  Greece  and 
Koine,  black  care  sat  heavily  by  the  hearths 
of  men  ;  and  English  singers,  following  the 
examples  of  Horace  and  Anacreon,  called 
upon  wine  to  drown  the  unwelcome  guest. 
"  Fortune  's  a  jade  !  "  they  cried  with  Beau 
mont's  Yeoman,  but  courage  and  strong  drink 
will  bid  the  hussy  stand.  Davenant  echoed 
the  sentiment  defiantly  in  his  mad  round, 

*'  Come,  hoys  !  a  health,  a  health,  a  double  health, 
To  those  who  'scape  from  care  by  shunning  wealth ;  " 


CAKES  AND   ALE.  139 

and  Ford  gave  the  fullest  expression  to  the 
gay  laws  of  Sans  Souci  in  his  drinking-song 
in  "  The  Sun's  Darling :  "  — 

"  Cast  away  care  ;  lie  that  loves  sorrow 
Lengthens  not  a  day,  nor  can  buy  to-morrow ; 
Money  is  trash,  and  he  that  will  spend  it, 
Let  him  drink  merrily,  Fortune  will  send  it. 

"  Pots  Hy  about,  give  us  more  liquor, 
Brothers  of  a  rout,  our  brains  will  flow  quicker ; 
Empty  the  cask  ;  score  up,  we  care  not ; 
Fill  all  the  pots  again ;  drink  on,  and  spare  not." 

To  pause  in  the  generous  swing  of  verses 
like  these,  and  call  to  mind  Mrs.  Jameson's 
refined  and  chilling  verdict,  "  It  is  difficult 
to  sympathize  with  English  drinking-songs," 
is  like  stepping  from  the  sunshine  of  life  into 
the  shaded  drawing-room  of  genteel  society. 
Difficult  to  sympathize  !  Why,  we  may  drink 
nothing  stronger  than  tea  and  Apollinaris 
water  all  our  lives  ;  yet  none  the  less  the  mad 
music  of  Elizabethan  song  will  dance  merrily 
in  our  hearts,  and  give  even  to  us  our  brief 
hour  of  illogical,  unreasonable  happiness. 
What  had  the  author  of  "  The  Diary  of  an 
Ennuydo "  to  do  with  that  robust  age  when 
ennui  had  still  to  be  invented  ?  What  was 


140  VARIA. 

she  to  think  of  the  indecorous  Bacchanalian 
catches  of  Lyly  and  Middlcton,  or  of  the  un 
compromising  vulgarity  of  that  famous  song 
from  "  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle,"  or  of  the 
unseemly  jollity  of  Cleveland's  tavern-bred, 
tavern-sung  verse  ? 

"  Como  hither,  Apollo's  bouncing1  girl,' 

And  in  a  whole  Hippocrene  of  Sherry, 
Let 's  drink  a  round  till  our  brains  do  whirl, 

Tuning  our  pipes  to  inako  ourselves  merry; 
A  Cam  bridge  lass,  Venus-like,  born  of  the  froth 
Of  an  old  half -filled  jug  of  barley-broth, 

She,  she  is  my  mistress,  her  suitors  are  many, 

But  she  '11  have  a  square-cap  if  e'er  she  have  any." 

Yet  after  discarding  these  ribald  songs,  with 
which  refined  femininity  is  not  presumed  to 
sympathize,  there  still  remain  such  charming 
verses  as  Ben  J'onsori's 

"  Swell  me  a  bowl  with  lusty  wine, 
Till  I  may  see  the  plump  Lyaaus  swim 

Above  the  brim. 
I  drink  as  I  would  write, 
In  flowing  measure,  filled  with  flame  and  sprite." 

Or,  if  this  be  too  scholarly  and  artificial,  there 
are  the  far  more  beautiful  lines  of  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher :  — 


CAKES  AND  ALE.  141 

"  God  Lyceus,  ever  young, 
Ever  honoured,  ever  Rung, 
Stained  with  blood  of  lusty  grapes; 
In  a  thousand  antic  shapes 
Dunce  upon  the  maze'*  brim, 
In  the  crimson  liquor  swim  ; 
From  thy  plenteous  hand  divine 
Let  a  river  run  with  wine  ; 

God  of  youth,  let  this  day  here 

Enter  neither  cure  nor  fear." 

Or  we  may  follow  where  Shakespeare  leads, 
and  sing  unhesitatingly  with  him  :  — 

"  Come,  thou  monarch  of  the  vine, 
Plumpy  Bacchus  with  pink  eyne  ! 
In  thy  vats  our  cares  be  drowned, 
With  thy  grapes  our  hairs  be  crowned, 
Cup  us,  till  the  world  go  round  — 
Cup  us,  till  the  world  go  round.'* 

There  is  only  one  drinking-song  —  a  sev 
enteenth-century  drinking-song,  too  —  with 
which  I  find  it  difficult  to  sympathize,  and 
that  is  the  well-known  and  often-quoted  verse 
of  Cowley's,  beginning,  — 

"  The  thirsty  earth  drinks  up  the  rain, 
And  thirsts  and  gapes  for  drink  again." 

Its  strained  arid  borrowed  conceits  which  have 
lost  all  charm  in  the  borrowing,  are  not  in  ac 
cordance  with  anything  so  natural  and  simple 


342  VAKM. 

as  conviviality.  Men  may  give  a  thousand 
foolish  reasons  for  loving,  and  feel  their  folly 
still  unjustified ;  but  drinking  needs  no  sueh 
steel-forged  ehain  of  arguments.  Moreover 
Cowloy's  last  lines,  — 

"  Fill  all  the  gliwscB  up,  for  why 
Should  every  creature  drink  but  I  ? 
Why,  man  of  morals,  tell  me  why  ?  " 

give  to  the  poem  an  air  of  protest  which 
destroys  it.  The  true  drinking-song  does  not 
concern  itself  in  the  least  with  the  "  man  of 
morals,'*  nor  with  his  verdict.  And  precisely 
because  it  is  innocent  of  any  conscious  offense 
against  morality,  because  it  has  not  considered 
the  moral  aspect  of  the  case  at  all,  it  makes 
its  gay  and  graceless  appeal  to  hearts  wearied 
with  the  perpetual  consideration  of  social 
reforms  and  personal  responsibility.  "  Be 
merry,  friends !  "  it  says  in  John  Ileywood's 
homely  phrase,  — 

"  Mirth  salveth  sorrows  most  soundly  :  " 

and  this  "  short,  sweet  text  "  is  worth  a  solid 
sermon  in  days  when  downright  merriment  is 
somewhat  out  of  favor. 

The  poet  who  of  all  others  seems  least  awaro 


CAKKS   AN!)   ALE.  143 

that  life  has  burdens,  not  only  to  bo  cairiod 
when  sent,  but  to  bo  rigorously  sought  for 
when  withheld,  is  Kobert  Ilerrick.  He  is  the 
true  singer  of  Cakes  and  Ale,  or  rather  of 
Curds  and  Cream ;  for  in  that  pleasant 
Devonshire  vicarage,  where  no  faint  echo  of 
London  streets  or  London  taverns  rouses  him 
from  rural  felicity,  his  heart  turns  easily  to 
country  feasts  and  pastimes.  It  is  true  he  re 
joices  mightily  in 

"  \v;issails  lino, 
Not  mode  of  ule,  but  spiffed  wine," 

yet  even  these  innocent  carousals  are  of  Ar 
cadian  simplicity,  lie  loves,  too,  the  faro 
of  Devon  farmers,  —  the  clotted  cream,  the 
yellow  butter,  honey,  and  baked  pears,  and 
fresh-laid  eggs.  lie  loves  the  Twelfth-Night 
cake,  with  "  joy-sops,"  —  alluring  word,  —  the 
"  wassail-bowl  "  of  Christmas,  the  "  Whitsun 
ale,"  the  almond  paste  sacred  to  wedding-rites, 
the  "  bucksome  meat  and  capring  wine."  that 
crown  the  New  Year's  board,  and,  above  all, 
the  plenteous  bounty  of  the  Harvest  Home. 
In  his  easy,  unvexcd  fashion,  he  is  solicitous 
that  we,  his  readers,  should  learn,  not  u  to 
labor  and  to  wait,"  but  to  be  idle  and  to  enjoy, 


144  VARfA. 

while  idleness  and  joy  still  gild  the  passing 
day. 

"  Tlien  while  time  serves,  and  we  are  but  decaying, 
Come,  my  Corinna,  come,  let  's  goe  a  Maying," 

is  the  gay  doctrine  preached  by  this  unclerical 
clergyman.  Even  when  he  remembers  per 
force  that  he  is  a  clergyman,  and  turns  his 
heart  to  prayer,  this  is  the  thanksgiving  that 
rises  sweetly  to  his  lips  :  — 

"  'T  is  Thou  that  crown'st  my  glittering  hearth 

With  guiltU'Hs  mirth, 
And  giv'st  mo  wassail-bowls  to  drink, 
Spiced  to  tho  brink." 

Had  the  patronage  of  the  Church  never  been 
extended  to  Ilerrick,  and  had  he  lived  on  in 
London,  the  friend  of  Jonson,  and  Selden, 
and  Fletcher,  and  kind,  witty  Bishop  Corbet, 
we  should  have  lost  the  most  charming  pas 
toral  vignettes  ever  flung  like  scattered  May- 
blossoms  into  literature  ;  but  we  should  have 
gained  drinking-songs  such  as  the  world  has 
never  known,  —  songs  whoso  reckless  music 
would  lure  us  even  now  from  our  watchful 
propriety  as  easily  as  great  Bacchus  lured  that 
wise  beast  Cerberus,  who  gave  his  doggish 


CAKES  AND   ALE.  145 

heart  and  wagged  his  doggish  tail,  gentle  and 
innocent  as  a  milk-fed  puppy,  when  he  saw  the 
god  of  wine. 

The  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  wit 
nessed  a  revolution  in  English  poetry,  and  the 
great  "  coming  event "  of  Queen  Anne's  Au 
gustan  age  threw  its  shadow  far  before  it,  —  a 
shadow  of  reticence  and  impersonality.  Peo 
ple  drank  more  and  more,  but  they  said  less 
and  less  about  it.  Even  in  the  reign  of 
Charles  II.,  though  convivial  songs  were  writ 
ten  by  the  score,  they  had  lost  the  ring  of 
earlier  days ;  and  wo  need  only  read  a  few  of 
the  much-admired  verses  of  Tom  D'Urfey  to 
be  convinced  that  periods  of  dissolute  living 
do  not  necessarily  give  birth  to  sincere  and 
reckless  song.  In  the  following  century,  sin 
cerity  and  recklessness  were  equally  out  of 
date.  Now  and  then  a  cheerful  outburst,  like 
the  drinking-song  from  Congreve's  "  Way  of 
the  World,"  illumines  our  arid  path,  and 
shows  the  source  whence  Thackeray  drew  his 
inspiration  for  those  delightful  verses  in  "  Re- 
bccca  and  Rowena"  concerning  the  relative 
pleasures  of  Pope  and  Sultan.  Later  on, 
Sheridan  gave  us  his  glee  in  "  The  Duenna/' 


14G  VA1UA. 

and  his  ever  popular  toast  in  "  The  School  for 
Scandal,"  which  is  not  properly  a  drinking- 
song  at  all.  Then  there  came  a  time  when  the 
spurious  conviviality  of  Barry  Cornwall  passed 
for  something  fine  and  genuine,  and  when 
Thomas  Haynes  Bayly  "gave  to  minstrelsy 
the  attributes  of  intellect,  and  reclaimed  even 
festive  song  from  vulgarity."  And  at  pre 
cisely  this  period,  when  a  vapid  elegance  per 
vaded  the  ditties  warbled  forth  in  refined 
drawing-rooms,  and  when  Moore  alone,  of  all 
the  popular  song-writers,  held  the  secret  of 
true  music  in  his  heart,  Thomas  Love  Pea 
cock  wrote  for  respectable  and  sentimental 
England  five  of  the  very  best  drinking-songs 
ever  Driven  to  an  ungrateful  world.  No  thought 

o  o  o 

of  possible  disapprobation  vexed  his  sours 
serenity,  lie  lived  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
as  completely  uncontaminated  by  nineteenth- 
century  ideals  as  though  Robinson  Crusoe's 
desert  island  had  been  his  resting-place.  The 
shafts  of  his  good-tempered  ridicule  were 
leveled  at  all  that  his  countrymen  were  striv 
ing  to  prove  sacred  and  beneficial.  His  easy 
laugh  rang  out  just  when  everybody  was  most 
strenuous  in  the  cause  of  progress.  His  wit 


CAKES   AND   ALE.  147 

was  admirably  calculated  to  make  people  un 
comfortable  and  dissatisfied.  And  in  addi 
tion  to  these  disastrous  qualities,  ho  apparently 
thought  it  natural  and  reasonable  and  right 
that  English  gentlemen  —  sensible,  educated, 
married  English  gentlemen  —  should  sit 
around  their  dinner-tables  until  the  midnight 
hour,  drinking  wine  and  singing  songs  with 
boyish  and  scandalous  joviality. 

The  songs  he  offered  for  these  barbarian 
entertainments  are  perfect  in  character  and 
form.  Harmless  mirth,  a  spirit  of  generous 
good-fellowship,  a  clean  and  manly  heart  dis 
arm,  or  should  disarm,  all  moral  judgment, 
while  the  grace  and  vigor  of  every  line  leave 
the  critic  powerless  to  complain.  "  Hail  to  the 
Headlong;'  and  "A  Heel-tap!  a  Heel-tap!" 
are  the  poet's  earliest  tributes  at  the  shrine 
of  Bacchus,  lie  gained  a  fuller  insight  and 
an  ampler  charity  before  he  laid  down  his  pen. 
His  three  best  poems,  which  cannot  possibly 
be  omitted  from  such  a  paper  as  this,  show 
how  time  mellowed  him,  as  it  mellows  wine. 
We  mark  the  ripening  power,  the  surer  touch, 
the  kinder  outlook  on  a  troubled  world. 
Peacock  was  but  twenty-nine  when  he  wrote 


MS  VARIA. 

"Headlong  Hall."  Ho  was  thirty-two  when 
44  Mclincourt  "  was  given  to  the  world,  and  iu 
it  liis  inimitable  "  Ghosts  : "  — 

"  In  life  three  ghostly  friars  were  we, 
And  now  three  friendly  ghosts  we  be. 
Around  our  shadowy  table  placed, 
The  spectral  bowl  before  us  floats : 
With  wine  that  none  but  ghosts  Ctin  taste 
Wo  wash  our  unsubstantial  throats. 
Throe  merry  ghosts  —  three  merry  ghosts  —  three  merry 

ghosts  are  we : 

Let  the  ocean  be  port,  and  we  '11  think  it  good  sport 
To  be  laid  in  that  Hed  Sea. 

"  With  songs  that  jovial  spectres  chant, 

Our  old  refectory  still  we  haunt. 

The  traveler  hears  our  midnight  mirth : 
'  O  list,'  he  cries,  '  the  haunted  choir ! 

The  merriest  ghost  that  walks  the  earth 

Is  now  the  ghost  of  a  ghostly  friar.' 

Three  merry  ghosts  —  three  merry  ghosts  —  three  merry 
ghosts  are  we : 

Let  the  ocean  be  port,  and  wo  '11  think  it  good  sport 

To  be  laid  in  that  Red  Sea." 

The  next  year,  in  "  Nightmare  Abbey,"  ap 
peared  the  best  known  and  the  most  admirable 
of  all  his  glees,  a  song  which  holds  its  own 
even  in  an  alien  world,  which  is  an  admitted 
favorite  with  singing  societies,  and  which  we 
have  all  of  ns  heard  from  time  to  time  chanted 


CAKES  AND   ALE.  149 

decorously  by  a  row  of  sedate  and  serious  gen 
tlemen  in  correct  evening  dress :  — 

"  Seamen  three !  what  men  be  ye  ? 

Gotham's  three  wise  men  we  be. 
Whither  in  your  bowl  so  free  ? 

To  rake  the  moon  from  out  the  sea. 
The  bowl  £oes  trim,  the  moon  doth  shine, 
And  our  ballast  is  old  wine  ; 
And  your  ballast  is  old  wine. 

"  Who  art  thou  so  fast  adrift  ? 
I  am  he  they  call  Old  Care. 
Here  on  board  we  will  thee  lift. 

No :  I  may  not  enter  there. 
Wherefore  so  ?     'T  is  Jove's  decree 
In  a  bowl  Care  may  not  be ; 
In  a  bowl  Care  may  not  be. 

"  Fear  ye  not  the  waves  that  roll  ? 

No :  in  charmed  bowl  wo  swim. 
What  the  charm  that  floats  the  bowl  ? 

Wator  may  not  pass  the  brim. 
The  bowl  shot's  trim,  thu  moon  doth  shine, 
And  our  ballast  is  old  whio  ; 
And  your  ballast  is  old  wine.'* 

Last,  but  by  no  means  least,  in  "  Crotchet 
Castle,"  we  have  a  drinking-song  at  once  the 
kindest  and  the  most  scandalous  that  the  poet 
ever  wrote,  —  a  song  which  is  the  final,  defi 
nite,  unrepentant  expression  of  heterodoxy :  — 


150  VARIA. 

"  If  I  drink  water  while  this  cloth  last, 

May  I  never  again  drink  wine  ; 
For  how  can  a  man,  in  his  life  of  a  span, 

Do  anything1  better  than  dine  ? 
We  '11  dine  and  drink,  and  say  if  we  think- 

That  anything1  better  can  be  ; 
And  when  we  have  dined,  wish  all  mankind 

May  dine  as  well  as  we. 

44  And  though  a  good  wish  will  fill  no  dish, 

And  brim  no  cup  with  sack, 
Yet  thoughts  will  spring  as  the  glasses  ring 

To  illumine  our  studious  track. 
O'er  the  brilliant  dreams  of  our  hopeful  schemes 

The  light  of  the  flask  shall  shino  ; 
And  we  '11  sit  till  day,  but  we  '11  find  the  way 

To  drench  the  world  with  wine." 

With  Peacock  the  history  of  English  drink 
ing-songs  is  practically  closed,  and  it  does  not 
seem  likely  to  be  reopened  in  the  immediate 
future.  Any  approach  to  the  forbidden  theme 
is  met  by  an  opposition  too  strenuous  and  uni 
versal  to  be  lightly  set  aside.  We  may  not 
love  nor  value  books  more  than  did  our  great 
grandfathers,  but  we  have  grown  to  curiously 
overrate  their  moral  influence,  to  fancy  that 
the  passions  of  men  and  women  are  freed  or 
restrained  by  snatches  of  song,  or  the  bits 
of  conversation  they  read  in  novels.  Accord- 


CAKES  AND  ALE.  151 

ingly,  a  rigorous  censorship  is  maintained 
over  the  ethics  of  literature,  with  the  rather 
melancholy  result  that  we  hear  of  little  else. 
Trivialities  have  ceased  to  bo  trivial  in  a  day 
of  microscopic  research,  and  there  is  no  longer 
anything  not  worth  consideration.  We  all 
remember  what  happened  when  Lord  Tenny 
son  wrote  his  u  Hands  all  Hound :  "  — 

"  First  pledge  our  Queen,  this  solemn  night, 
Then  drink  to  England,  every  guest." 

It  is  by  no  means  a  ribald  or  rollicking  song. 
On  the  contrary,  there  is  something  dutiful, 
as  well  as  justifiable,  in  the  serious  injunction 
of  its  chorus  :  — 

"  Hands  all  round ! 
God  the  traitor's  hope  confound ! 
To  this  great  cause  of  Freedom,  drink,  my  friends, 
And  the  great  name  of  England,  round  and  round." 

Yet  such  was  the  scandal  given  to  the  advo 
cates  of  temperance  by  this  patriotic  poem, 
and  so  lamentable  were  the  reproaches  which 
ensued,  that  the  "  Saturday  Review,"  playing 
for  once  the  unwonted  part  of  peacemaker, 
"  soothed  and  sustained  the  agitated  frame  " 
of  British  sensitiveness  by  reminding  her  that 
the  laureate  had  given  no  hint  as  to  what 


152  VARIA. 

liquor  should  be  drunk  in  the  cause  of  free 
dom,  and  that  he  probably  had  it  in  his  mind 
to  toast 

"  the  groat  name  of  England,  round  and  round," 

in  milk  or  mineral  waters.  The  more  recent 
experience  of  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling  suggests 
forcibly  the  lesson  taught  our  "  Autocrat  of 
the  Breakfast-Table,"  when  he  sent  his  little 
poem  to  a  "  festive  and  coiivivial  "  celebra 
tion,  and  had  it  returned  with  "  some  slight 
changes  "  to  suit  the  sentiments  of  the  com 
mittee  :  — 

"  In  cellar,  in  pantry,  in  attic,  in  hall, 
Dowu,  down  with  the  tyrant  that  masters  us  all !  " 

Hood,  a  good-tempered  mocker  always,  took 
note  of  the  popular  prejudice  in  his  hospitable 
lines  by  a  "  Member  of  a  Temperance  So 
ciety  :  "  — 

ik  Come,  pass  round  the  pail,  boys,  and  give  it  no  quarter, 
Drink  deep,  and  drink  oft,  and  replenish  your  jugs." 

And  Longfellow,  with  his  usual  directness, 
went  straight  to  the  hearts  of  his  readers 
when,  in  simple  .seriousness,  he  filled  his 
antique  pitcher,  and  sang  his  "  Drinking 
Song  "  in  praise  of  water. 


CAKES  AND   ALK.  153 

"  Come,  old  friend,  sit  down  nnd  listen  1 

As  it  passes  thus  between  ns, 
How  its  wavelets  laugh  and  glisten 
In  the  head  of  old  Sileuus !  " 

This  was  the  verso  which  New  England, 
and  Mother  England  too,  stood  ready  to  ap 
plaud.  Every  era  has  its  cherished  virtues, 
and  when  the  order  changes,  the  wise  do  well 
to  change  with  it  as  speedily  as  they  can. 
Once  there  was  a  jolly  old  play\vright  named 
Cratinus,  who  died  of  a  broken  heart  on  see 
ing  some  Lacediumonian  soldiers  fracture  a 
cask  of  wine,  and  let  it  run  to  waste.  He  is 
mentioned  kindly  by  ancient  writers,  but  Pea 
cock  is  the  last  man  to  fling  him  a  word  of 
sympathy.  Once  there  was  a  time  when 
Chaucer  received  from  England's  king  the 
grant  of  a  pitcher  of  wine  daily  in  the  port  of 
London.  What  poet  or  public  servant  now 
has,  or  hopes  to  have,  such  mark  of  royal 
favor  ?  Once  Charles  I.  gave  to  Ben  Jonson, 
as  poet  laureate,  one  hundred  pounds  a  year, 
and  a  tierce  of  Spanish  Canary.  No  such  gen 
erous  drink  comes  now  from  Queen  Victoria 
to  lend  sparkle  and  vivacity  to  Mr.  Austin'tt 
vers«.  Once  Dr.  Johnson,  "  the  real  primate, 


1 J54  VARIA. 

the  sours  teacher  of  all  England,"  says  Car- 
lyle,  declared  roundly  and  without  shocking 
anybody,  "  Brandy,  sir,  is  the*  drink  for 
heroes."  It  is  not  thus  that  primates  and 
teachers  of  any  land  now  hearten  their  waver 
ing  disciples.  Once  the  generous  publishers 
of  u  Marmiou  "  sent  Scott  a  hogshead  of  lino 
claret  to  mark  their  appreciation  of  his  verse. 
It  is  not  in  this  graceful  fashion  that  authors 
now  receive  their  tokens  of  good  will.  The 
jovial  past  is  dead,  quite  dead,  we  keep  repeat 
ing  sternly ;  yet  its  merry  ghost  smiles  at  us 
broadly,  in  no  way  abashed  by  our  frowns  and 
disapprobation.  A  friendly  ghost  it  is,  haunt 
ing  the  secret  chambers  of  our  hearts  with 
laughter  instead  of  groans,  and  echoes  of  old 
songs  in  place  of  clanking  chains,  —  a  com 
panionable  ghost,  with  brave  tales  to  tell,  and 
jests  to  ease  our  pain,  a  word  of  wisdom  when 
we  have  wit  to  listen,  a  word  of  comfort  when 
we  have  time  to  heed. 

"Troll  tho  bowl,  tho  nut-brown  bowl, 
And  hero,  kind  niato,  to  thoo  ! 

L<-t  '.•»  HUI£  a  dii'i^o  for  Saint  Hugh's  Houl, 
And  drown  it  merrily." 


OLD  WINE  AND  NEW. 

READERS  of  "  Old  Mortality  "  will  perhaps 
remember  that  when  Graham  of  Claverhouse 
escorts  Henry  Morton  as  a  prisoner  to  Edin 
burgh,  he  asks  that  estimable  and  unfortunate 
young  non-conformist  if  he  has  ever  read 
Froissart.  Morton,  who  was  probably  the  -last 
man  in  Scotland  to  derive  any  gratification 
from  the  Chronicles,  answers  that  he  has 
not.  "I  have  half  a  mind  to  contrive  you 
should  have  six  months'  imprisonment,"  says 
the  undaunted  Claverhouse,  "  in  order  to  pro 
cure  you  that  pleasure.  His  chapters  inspire 
me  with  more  enthusiasm  than  even  poetry 
itself.  And  the  noble  canon,  with  what  true 
chivalrous  feeling  he  confines  his  beautiful 
expressions  of  sorrow  to  the  death  of  the  gal 
lant  and  high-bred  knight,  of  whom  it  was 
a  pity  to  see  the  fall,  such  was  his  loyalty  to 
his  king,  pure  faitli  to  his  religion,  hardihood 
towards  his  enemy,  and  fidelity  to  his  lady 
love !  Ah,  benedieite !  how  he  will  mourn 


1T>(5  VAUIA, 

over  the  fall  of  such  a  pearl  of  knighthood,  bo 
it  on  the  side  ho  happens  to  favor  or  on  tho 
other !  But  truly,  for  sweeping  from  the  face 
of  the  earth  some  few  hundreds  of  villain 
churls,  who  are  Lorn  Iwt  to  plough  it,  the 
high-born  and  inquisitive  historian  has  mar 
velous  little  sympathy." 

I  should  like,  out  of  my  affection  for  tho 
Chronicles,  to  feel  that  Sir  Walter  over 
stated  the  case  when  he  put  these  cheerful 
words  into  the  mouth  of  Dundee  ;  but  it  is 
vain  to  deny  that  Froissart,  living  in  a  dark 
ened  age,  was  as  indifferent  to  the  fate  of  tho 
rank  and  file  as  if  he  had  been  a  great  nine 
teenth-century  general.  To  be  sure,  the  rank 
and  file  were  then  counted  by  the  hundreds 
rather  than  by  the  thousands,  and  it  took 
years  of  continuous  warfare  to  kill  as  many 
soldiers  as  perished  in  one  of  our  modern 
battles.  Moreover,  the  illuminating  truth  that 
Jack  is  as  good  as  his  master  —  by  hoi])  of 
which  we  all  live  now  in  such  striking  brother 
hood  and  amity  —  had  not  then  dawned  upon 
a  proud  and  prejudiced  world.  Fighting  was 
the  grand  business  of  life,  and  that  Jack  did 
not  fight  as  well  as  his  master  was  a  fact 


OL I*    \VL\K  AND   NKW.  157 

equally  apparent  to  those  who  made  history 
and  to  those  who  wrote  it.  If  the  English 
archers,  the  French  men-at-arms,  and  the 
Breton  lances  could  be  trusted  to  stand  the 
shock  of  battle,  the  "  lusty  varlets,"  who 
formed  the  bulk  of  every  army,  were  sure 
to  run  away ;  and  the  u  commonalty "  were 
always  ready  to  open  their  gates  and  deliver 
up  their  towns  to  every  fresh  new-comer. 
When  Philip  of  Navarre  was  entreated  to  visit 
Paris,  then  in  a  state  of  tumult  and  rebellion, 
and  was  assured  that  the  merchants  and  the 
mob  held  him  in  equal  affection,  he  resolutely 
declined  their  importunities,  concluding  that 
to  put  his  faith  in  princes  was,  on  the  whole, 
less  dangerous  than  to  confide  it  in  the  people. 
44  In  commonalties,"  observed  this  astute  vet 
eran,  "  there  is  neither  dependence  nor  union, 
save  in  the  destruction  of  all  things  good." 
44  What  can  a  base-born  man  know  of  honor?  " 
asks  Froissart  coldly.  44  His  sole  wish  is  to 
enrich  himself.  lie  is  like  the  otter,  which, 
entering  a  pond,  devours  all  the  fish  therein." 
Now,  if  history,  as  Professor  Seeley  teaches 
us,  should  begin  with  a  maxim  and  end  with 
a  moral,  hero  are  maxims  and  morals  in  abun- 


158  VARIA. 

dance,  albeit  they  may  have  lost  their  flavor 
for  an  altruistic  age.  For  no  one  of  the  sister 
Muses  has  lent  herself  so  unreservedly  to  the 
demands  of  an  exacting  generation  as  Clio, 
who,  shorn  of  her  splendor,  sits  spectacled 
before  a  dusty  table  strewn  with  Acts  of  Par- 
liament  and  Acts  of  Congress,  and  forgets  the 
glories  of  tht  past  in  the  absorbing  study  of 
constitutions.  She  traces  painfully  the  suc 
cessive  steps  by  which  the  sovereign  power 
lias  passed  from  the  king  to  the  nobles,  from 
the  nobles  to  the  nation,  and  from  the  nation 
to  the  mob,  and  asks  herself  interesting  but 
fruitless  questions  as  to  what  is  coming  next. 
She  has  been  divorced  from  literature,  — 
44  mere  literature,"  as  Professor  Seeley  con 
temptuously  phrases  it,  —  and  wedded  to 
science,  that  grim  but  amorous  lord  whose 
harem  is  tolerably  full  already,  but  who  lusts 
perpetually  for  another  bride.  If,  like  Briseis, 
she  looks  backward  wistfully,  she  is  at  once 
reminded  that  it  is  no  part  of  her  present 
duty  to  furnish  recreation  to  grateful  and 
happy  readers,  but  that  her  business  lies  in 
drawing  conclusions  from  facts  already  estab 
lished,  and  providing  a  saddened  world  with 


OLD    WINE   AND   NEW.  159 

wise  speculations  on  political  science,  based 
upon  historic  certainties.  Her  safest  lessons, 
Professor  Seeley  tells  her  warningly,  are  con 
veyed  in  "Blue  Books  and  other  statistics," 
with  which,  indeed,  no  living  man  can  hope 
to  recreate  himself;  and  tier  essential  out 
growths  arc  "  political  philosophy,  the  com 
parative  study  of  legal  institutions,  political 
economy,  and  international  law,"  a  witches' 
brew  with  which  few  living  men  would  care 
to  meddle.  It  is  even  part  of  his  severe  dis 
cipline  to  strip  her  of  the  fair  words  and  glit 
tering  sentences  with  which  her  suitors  have 
sought  for  centuries  to  enhance  her  charms, 
and  "  for  the  beauty  of  drapery  to  substitute 
the  beauty  of  the  nude  figure."  Poor  shiver 
ing  Muse,  with  whom  Shakespeare  once  dal 
lied,  and  of  whom  great  Homer  sang!  Never 
again  shall  she  be  permitted  to  inspire  the 
genius  that  enthralls  the  world.  Never  again 
sliall  "  mere  literature  "  carry  her  name  and 
fame  into  the  remotest  corners  of  the  globe. 
She  who  once  told  us  in  sonorous  sentences 
"  how  great  projects  were  executed,  great  ad 
vantages  gained,  and  great  calamities  averted," 
is  now  sent  into  studious  retirement,  denied 


100  VARIA. 

the  adornments  of  style,  forbidden  the  com 
panionship  of  heroes,  and  requested  to  occupy 
herself  industriously  with  Blue  Books  and 
the  growth  of  constitutions.  I  know  nothing 
more  significant  than  Professor  Seeley's  warn 
ing  to  modern  historians  not  to  resemble  Taci- 
tus,  —  of  which  there  seems  but  little  danger, 
—  unless,  indeed,  it  be  the  complacency  with 
which  a  patriotic  and  very  popular  American 
critic  congratulates  himself  and  us  on  the 
felicity  of  having  plenty  of  young  poets  of 
our  own,  who  do  not  in  the  least  resemble 
Wordsworth,  or  Shelley,  or  Keats. 

Yet  when  we  take  from  history  all  that 
gives  it  color,  vivacity,  and  charm,  we  lose 
perchance  more  than  our  mere  enjoyment, — 
though  that  be  a  heavy  forfeiture,  —  more 
than  the  pleasant  hours  spent  in  the  storied 
past.  Even  so  stern  a  master  as  Mr.  Lecky 
is  fain  to  admit  that  these  obsolete  narratives, 
which  once  called  themselves  histories,  "gave 
insight  into  human  character,  breathed  noble 
sentiments,  rewarded  and  stimulated  noble  ac 
tions,  and  kindled  high  patriotic  feeling  by 
their  strong  appeals  to  the  imagination.'* 
This  was  no  unfruitful  labor,  and  until  we 


OLD    WINE  AND  NEW.  161 

remember  that  man  does  not  live  by  parlia 
mentary  rule  nor  by  accuracy  of  information, 
but  by  the  power  of  his  own  emotions  and  the 
strength  of  his  own  self-control,  we  can  bo 
readily  mistaken  as  to  the  true  value  of  his 
lessons.  "  A  nation  with  whom  sentiment  is 
nothing,"  observes  Mr.  Froude,  "is  on  its 
way  to  become  no  nation  at  all ; "  and  it  has 
been  well  said  that  Nelson's  signal  to  his  fleet 
at  Trafalgar,  that  last  pregnant  and  simple 
message  sent  in  the  face  of  death,  has  had 
as  much  practical  effect  upon  the  hearts  and 
the  actions  of  Englishmen  in  every  quarter 
of  the  globe,  in  every  circumstance  of  danger 
and  adventure,  as  seven  eighths  of  the  Acts 
of  Parliament  that  decorate  the  statute-book. 
Yet  Dr.  Bright,  in  a  volume  of  more  than 
fourteen  hundred  pages,  can  find  no  room  for 
an  incident  which  has  become  a  living  force  in 
history.  He  takes  pains  to  omit,  in  his.  luke 
warm  accouiit  of  the  battle,  the  one  thing  that 
was  best  worth  the  telling. 

It  has  become  a  matter  of  such  pride  with 
a  certain  school  of  modern  historians  to  bo 
gray  and  neutral,  accurate  in  petty  details, 
indifferent  to  great  men,  cautious  in  praise  or 


1G2  VAlilA. 

blame,  and  as  lifeless  as  mathematicians,  that 
a  gleam  of  color  or  a  flash  of  fire  is  apt  to 
be  regarded  with  suspicion.  Yet  color  is  not 
necessarily  misleading;  and  that  keen,  warm 
grasp  of  a  subject  which  gives  us  atmosphere 
as  well  as  facts,  interest  as  well  as  information, 
comes  nearer  to  the  veiled  truth  than  a  cata 
logue  of  correct  dates  and  chillingly  narrated 
incidents.  It  is  easy  for  Mr.  Gardiner  to 
denounce  Clarendon's  u  well-known  careless 
ness  about  details  whenever  he  has  a  good 
story  to  tell ;  "  but  what  has  the  later  historian 
ever  said  to  us  that  will  dwell  in  our  hearts, 
and  keep  alive  our  infatuations  and  our  anti 
pathies,  as  do  some  of  these  condemned  tales  ? 
Nay,  even  Mr.  Gardiner's  superhuman  cold 
ness  in  narrating  such  an  event  as  the  tragic 
death  of  Montrose  has  not  saved  him  from 
at  least  one  inaccuracy.  "  Montrose,  in  his 
scarlet  cassock,  was  hanged  at  the  Grass- 
market,"  he  says,  with  frigid  terseness.  But 
Montrose,  as  it  chances,  was  hanged  at  the 
city  cross  in  the  High  Street,  midway  between 
tho  Tolbooth  and  the  Tron  Church.  Even 
the  careless  and  highly  colored  Clarendon 
knew  this,  though  Sir  Walter  Scott,  it  must 


OLD    WINE   AND   NEW.  163 

be  admitted,  did  not ;  but,  after  all,  the  exact 
point  in  Edinburgh  where  Montrose  was 
hanged  is  of  no  vital  importance  to  anybody. 
What  is  important  is  that  we  should  feel  the 
conflicting  passions  of  that  stormy  time,  that 
we  should  regard  them  with  equal  sanity  and 
sympathy,  and  that  the  death  of  Montrose 
should  have  for  us  more  significance  than  it 
appears  to  have  for  Mr.  Gardiner.  Better 
Froissart's  courtly  lamentations  over  the  death 
of  every  gallant  knight  than  this  studied  in 
difference  to  the  sombre  stories  which  history 
has  inscribed  for  us  on  her  scroll. 

For  the  old  French  chronicler  would  have 
agreed  cordially  with  Landor :  "  We  might 
as  well,  in  a  drama,  place  the  actors  behind 
the  scenes,  and  listen  to  the  dialogue  there, 
as,  in  a  history,  push  back  valiant  men." 
Froissart  is  enamored  of  valor  wherever  he 
finds  it;  and  he  shares  Carlyle's  reverence 
not  only  for  events,  but  for  the  controlling 
forces  which  have  moulded  them.  "  The  his 
tory  of  mankind,"  says  Carlyle,  about  whose 
opinions  there  is  seldom  any  room  for  doubt, 
"  is  the  history  of  its  great  men  ;  "  and  Frois 
sart,  whose  knowledge  is  of  that  narrow  and 


164  VAR/A. 

intimate  kind  which  comes  from  personal  as 
sociation,  finds  everything  worth  narrating 
that  can  serve  to  illustrate  the  brilliant  pageant 
of  life.  Nor  are  his  methods  altogether  un 
like  Carlyle's.  lie  is  a  sturdy  hero-worshiper, 
who  yet  never  spares  his  heroes,  believing  that 
when  all  is  set  down  truthfully  and  without 
excuses,  those  strong  and  vivid  qualities  which 
make  a  man  a  leader  among  men  will  of  them 
selves  claim  our  homage  and  admiration. 
What  Cromwell  is  to  Carlyle,  what  William 
of  Orange  is  to  Macauluy,  what  Henry  VIII. 
is  to  Fronde,  Ciaston  Phoebus,  Count  de  Foix, 
is  to  Froissart.  But  not  for  one  moment  docs 
lie  assume  the  tactics  of  either  Macaulay  or  of 
Fronde,  coloring  with  careful  art  that  which 
is  dubious,  and  softening  or  concealing  that 
which  is  irredeemably  bad.  Just  as  Carlyle 
paints  for  us  Cromwell,  —  warts  and  all,  — 
telling  us  in  plain  words  his  least  amiable  and 
estimable  traits,  and  intimating  that  he  loves 
him  none  the  less  for  these  most  human  quali 
ties,  so  Froissart  tells  us  unreservedly  all  that 
has  come  to  his  knowledge  concerning  the 
Count  de  Foix.  Thus  it  appears  that  this 
paragon  of  knighthood  virtually  banished  his 


OLD    WINE  AND  NEW.  165 

wife,  kept  bis  cousin,  the  Viscount  de  Chateau- 
bon,  a  close  captive  until  he  paid  forty  thou 
sand  francs  ransom,  imprisoned  his  only  son 
on  a  baseless  suspicion  of  treason,  and  actually 
slew  the  poor  boy  by  his  violence,  though 
without  intention,  and  to  his  own  infinite 
sorrow  and  remorse.  Worse  than  all  this, 
he  beguiled  with  friondly  messages  his  cousin, 
Sir  Peter  Arnaut  de  Beam,  the  commander 
and  governor  of  Lourdes,  to  come  to  his  castle 
of  Orthes,  and  then,  under  his  own  roof-tree, 
stabbed  his  guest  live  times,  and  left  him  to 
die  miserably  of  his  wounds  in  a  dungeon, 
because  Sir  Peter  refused  to  betray  the  trust 
confided  to  him,  and  deliver  up  to  France 
the  strong  fortress  of  Lourdes,  which  he  held 
valiantly  for  the  king  of  England. 

Now,  Froissart  speaks  his  mind  very  plainly 
concerning  this  base  deed,  softening  no  de 
tail,  and  offering  no  word  of  extenuation  or 
acquittal;  but  none  the  less  the  Count  de 
Foix  is  to  him  the  embodiment  of  knightly 
courtesy  and  valor,  and  he  describes  with 
ardor  every  personal  characteristic,  every  trait, 
and  every  charm  that  wins  both  love  and  rev- 
erence.  "  Although  I  have  seen  many  kings 


100  VAR1A. 

and  princes,  knights  and  others,"  he  writes, 
"  I  have  never  beheld  any  so  handsome, 
whether  in  limbs  and  shape  or  in  countenance, 
which  was  fair  and  ruddy,  with  gray,  amorous 
eyes  that  gave  delight  whenever  lie  chose  to 
express  affection,  lie  was  so  perfectly  formed 
that  no  one  could  praise  him  too  much.  Ilo 
loved  earnestly  the  things  he  ought  to  love, 
and  hated  those  which  it  was  becoming  him  to 
hate,  lie  was  a  prudent  knight,  full  of  enter 
prise  and  wisdom.  lie  had  never  any  men 
of  abandoned  character  about  him,  reigned 
wisely,  and  was  constant  in  his  devotions.  To 
speak  briefly  and  to  the  point,  the  Count  de 
Foix  was  perfect  in  person  and  in  mind ;  and 
no  contemporary  prince  could  be  compared 
with  him  for  sense,  honor,  or  liberality." 

In  good  truth,  this  despotic  nobleman  illus 
trated  admirably  the  familiar  text,  "  When  a 
strong  man  armed  kecpcth  his  court,  those 
tilings  which  he  possesscth  arc  in  peace."  If 
he  ruled  his  vassals  severely  and  taxed  them 
heavily,  he  protected  them  from  all  outside 
interference  or  injury.  None  might  despoil 
their  homes,  nor  pass  the  boundaries  of  Beam 
and  Foix,  without  paying  honestly  for  all  that 


OLD    WINE   AND   NEW.  1C7 

was  required.  At  a  time  when  invading  armies 
and  the  far  more  terrible  "  free  companies " 
pillaged  the  country,  until  the  fair  fields  of 
France  lay  like  a  barren  land,  the  Count  de 
Foix  suffered  neither  English  nor  French, 
Gascon  nor  Breton,  to  set  foot  within  his  ter 
ritories,  until  assurance  had  been  given  that 
his  people  should  suffer  no  harm.  lie  lived 
splendidly,  and  gave  away  large  sums  of  money 
wherever  he  had  reason  to  believe  that  his 
interests  or  his  prestige  would  be  strengthened 
by  such  generosity ;  but  no  parasite,  male  or 
female,  shared  in  his  magnificent  bounty. 
Clear-headed,  cold-hearted,  vigilant,  astute, 
liberal,  and  inexorable,  he  guarded  his  own, 
and  sovereigns  did  him  honor.  His  was  no 

O 

humane  nor  tranquil  record ;  yet  judging  him 
by  the  standards  of  his  own  time  and  place,  by 
the  groat  good  as  well  as  by  the  lesser  evil  that 
he  wrought,  we  arc  fain  to  echo  Froissart's 
rapturous  words,  "It  is  a  pity  such  a  one 
should  ever  grow  old  and  die." 

The  earlier  part  of  the  Chronicles  is  com 
piled  from  the  "  Vruyes  Chroniques  "  of  Jean 
le  Bel,  Canon  of  St.  Lambert's  at  Liege. 
Froissart  tells  us  so  plainly,  and  admits  that 


1<>8  VARfA. 

he  made  free  use  of  the  older  narrative  as  far 
as  it  could  serve  him ;  afterwards  relying  for 
information  on  the  personal  recollections  of 
knights,  squires,  and  men-at-arms  who  had 
witnessed  or  had  taken  part  in  the  invasions, 
wars,  buttles,  skirmishes,  treaties,  tournaments, 
and  feasts  which  made  up  the  stirring  tale  of 
fourteenth-century  life.  To  gain  this  know 
ledge,  he  traveled  far  and  wide,  attaching  him 
self  to  one  court  and  one  patron  after  another, 
and  indefatigably  seeking  those  soldiers  of  dis 
tinction  who  had  served  in  many  lands,  and 
could  tell  him  the  valorous  deeds  of  which  he 
so  ardently  loved  to  hear.  In  long,  leisurely 
journeys,  in  lonely  castles  and  populous  cities, 
in  summer  days  and  winter  nights,  he  gath 
ered  and  fitted  together  —  loosely  enough  — 
the  motley  fabric  of  his  talc. 

This  open-air  method  of  collecting  material 
can  hardly  be  expected  to  commend  itself  to 
modern  historians ;  and  it  is  surely  not  neces 
sary  for  Mr.  Green  or  any  other  careful  scholar 
to  tell  us  seriously  that  Froissart  is  inaccurate. 
Of  course  he  is  inaccurate.  How  could  history 
passed,  ballad  fashion,  from  man  to  man  be 
anything  but  inaccurate  ?  And  how  could  it 


OLD    WINE  AND  NEW.  109 

fail  to  possess  that  atmosphere  and  color  which 
students  are  bidden  to  avoid,  —  lest  perchance 
they  resemble  Tacitus,  —  but  which  lovers  of 
"  mere  literature  "  hail  rapturously,  and  which 
give  to  the  printed  page  the  breath  of  the 
living  past?  Froissart  makes  a  sad  jumble  of 
his  names,  which,  indeed,  in  that  easy-going 
age,  were  spelt  according  to  the  taste  and  dis 
cretion  of  the  writer ;  he  embellishes  his  nar 
rative  with  charming  descriptions  of  incidents 
which  perhaps  never  went  through  the  formal 
ity  of  occurring ;  and  ho  is  good  enough  to 
forbear  annoying  us  with  dates.  "  About  this 
time  King  Philip  of  France  quitted  Paris  in 
company  with  the  King  of  Bohemia ; "  or, 
"  The  feast  of  St.  John  the  Baptist  now  ap 
proaching,  the  lords  of  England  and  Germany 
made  preparations  for  their  intended  expedi 
tion."  This  is  as  near  as  we  ever  get  to  the 
precise  period  in  which  anything  happened 
or  did  not  happen,  as  the  case  may  be ;  but 
to  the  unexacting  reader  names  and  dates  are 
not  matters  of  lively  interest,  and  even  the 
accuracy  of  a  picturesque  incident  is  of  no 
paramount  importance.  If  it  were  generally 
believed  to  liave  taken  place,  it  illustrates  tho 


170  VARIA. 

customs  and  sentiments  of  the  age  as  well  as  if 
it  were  authentic;  and  the  one  great  advan 
tage  of  the  old  over  the  new  historian  is  that 
lie  feels  the  passions  and  prejudices  of  his  own 
time,  and  reflects  them  without  either  condem 
nation  or  apology.  The  nineteenth-century 
mind  working  on  fourteenth-century  material 
is  chilly  in  its  analysis,  and  Draconian  in  its 
judgment.  It  can  and  does  enlighten  us  on 
many  significant  points,  but  it  is  powerless  to 
breathe  into  its  pages  that  warm  and  vivid  life 
which  lies  so  far  beyond  our  utmost  powers  of 
sympathy  or  comprehension. 

Now,  there  are  many  excellent  and  very 
intelligent  people  to  whom  the  fourteenth 
century  or  any  other  departed  century  is  with 
out  intrinsic  interest.  Mr.  John  Morley  has 
emphatically  recorded  his  sentiments  on  the 
subject.  "  I  do  not  in  the  least  want  to  know 
what  happened  in  the  past,"  he  says,  "  except 
as  it  enables  me  to  see  my  way  more  clearly 
through  what  is  happening  now."  Here  is  the 
utilitarian  view  concisely  and  comprehensively 
stated ;  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  how 
Froissart,  any  more  than  Tacitus  or  Xenophon, 
can  help  us  efficaciously  to  understand  the 


OLD    WINE  AND   NEW.  171 

Monroe  doctrine  or  the  troubles  in  the  Trans 
vaal.  Perhaps  these  authors  yield  their  finest 
pleasures  to  another  and  less  meritorious  class 
of  readers,  who  are  well  content  to  forget  the 
vexations  and  humiliations  of  the  present  in 
the  serener  study  of  the  mighty  past.  The 
best  thing  about  our  neighbor's  trouble,  says 
the  old  adage,  is  that  it  does  not  keep  us 
awake  at  night ;  and  the  best  thing  about  the 
endless  troubles  of  other  generations  is  that 
they  do  not  in  any  way  impair  our  peace  of 
mind.  It  may  be  that  they  did  not  greatly 
vex  the  sturdier  race  who,  live  hundred  years 
ago,  gave  themselves  scant  leisure  for  reflec 
tion.  Certain  it  is  that  events  which  should 
have  been  considered  calamitous  are  narrated 
by  Froissart  in  such  a  cheerful  fashion  that  it 
is  difficult  for  us  to  preserve  our  mental  bal 
ance,  and  not  share  in  his  unreasonable  elation. 
"  Now  is  the  time  come  when  we  must  speak 
of  lances,  swords,  and  coats  of  mail,"  he  writes 
with  joyous  zest.  And  again  he  blithely  de 
scribes  the  battle  of  Auray:  "The  French 
marched  in  such  close  order  that  one  could  not 
have  thrown  a  tennis-ball  among  them  but  it 
must  have  stuck  upon  the  point  of  a  stiffly 


172  VAX/A. 

carried  lance.  The  English  took  great  plea 
sure  in  looking  at  them."  Of  course  the  Eng 
lish  did,  and  they  took  great  pleasure  in  fight 
ing  with  them  half  an  hour  later,  and  great 
pleasure  in  routing  them  before  the  day  was 
past ;  for  in  this  bloody  contest  fell  Charles  of 
Blois,  the  bravest  soldier  of  his  time,  and  the 
fato  of  Brittany  was  sealed.  Invitations  to 
battle  were  then  politely  given  and  cordially 
accepted,  like  invitations  to  a  ball.  The  Earl 
of  Salisbury,  before  Brest,  sends  word  to  Sir 
Bertram!  du  Gucsclin  :  "  We  beg  and  entreat 
of  you  to  advance,  when  you  shall  be  fought 
with,  without  fail."  And  the  French,  in  re 
turn,  "  could  never  form  a  wish  for  feats  of 
arms  but  there  were  some  English  ready  to 
gratify  it." 

This  cheerful,  accommodating  spirit,  this 
alacrity  in  playing  the  dangerous  game  of  war, 
is  difficult  for  us  peace-loving  creatures  to 
understand ;  but  we  should  remember  the 
"  desperate  and  gleeful  fighting  "  of  Nelson's 
d;\y,  and  how  that  great  sailor  wasted  his 
sympathy  on  the  crew  of  the  warship  Cullo- 
den,  which  went  ashore  at  the  battle  of  the 
Kile,  "  while  their  more  fortunate  companions 


OLD    WINE  AND   NEW.  173 

were  in  the  full  tide  of  happiness."  Du 
Guesclin  or  Sir  John  Chandos  might  have 
written  that  sentence,  had  either  been  much  in 
the  habit  of  writing  anything,1  and  Froissart 
would  have  subscribed  cordially  to  the  senti 
ment.  "  Many  persons  will  not  readily  be 
lieve  what  I  am  about  to  tell,"  ho  says  with 
becoming  gravity,  "  though  it  is  strictly  true. 
The  English  are  fonder  of  war  than  of  peace." 
"  He  had  the  courage  of  an  Englishman,"  is 
the  praise  continually  bestowed  on  some  enter 
prising  French  knight ;  and  when  the  English 
and  Scotch  met  each  other  in  battle,  the 
French  historian  declares,  "  there  was  no 
check  to  their  valor  as  long  as  their  weapons 
endured."  Nothing  can  be  more  vivacious 
than  Froissart's  description  of  the  manner  in 
which  England  awaited  the  threatened  invasion 

o 

of  the  French  under  their  young  king,  Charles 
VI.  —  "  The  prelates,  abbots,  and  rich  citizens 
were  panic-struck,  but  the  artisans  and  poorer 
sort  held  it  very  cheap.  Such  knights  and 
squires  as  were  not  rich,  but  eager  for  renown, 
were  delighted,  and  said  to  each  other :  '  Lord  ! 
what  fine  times  are  coming,  since  the  king  of 

1  Du  Gucsclin  never  knew  hovr  to  write. 


174  VARIA. 

France  intends  to  visit  us !  He  is  a  valiant 
sovereign,  and  of  great  enterprise.  There  has 
not  been  such  a  one  in  France  these  three 
hundred  years,  lie  will  make  his  people  good 
men-at-arms,  and  blessed  may  he  be  for  think 
ing  to  invade  us,  for  certainly  we  shall  all  be 
slain  or  grow  rich.  One  tiling  or  the  pther 
must  happen  to  us.' ' 

Alas,  for  their  disappointment,  when  ad 
verse  winds  and  endless  altercations  kept  the 
invaders  safe  at  home !  There  was  a  great 
deal  of  solid  enjoyment  lost  on  both  sides, 
though  wealthy  citizens  counted  their  gains  in 
peace.  'War  was  not  only  a  recognized  busi 
ness,  but  a  recognized  pleasure  as  Well,  and 
noble  knights  relieved  their  heavy  fighting 
with  the  gentler  diversions  of  the  tournament 
and  the  chase*.  When  Kdward  III.  entered 
France  for  the  last  time,  he  carried  with  him 
thirty  falconers  laden  with  hawks,  sixty  couples 
of  strong  hounds,  and  as  many  greyhounds, 
"  so  that  every  day  he  had  good  sport,  either 
by  land  or  water.  Many  lords  had  their 
hawks  and  hounds  as  well  as  the  king." 

A  merry  life  while  the  sun  shone  ;  and  if  it 
set  early  for  most  of  these  stout  warriors,  their 


OLD    WINE  AND  NEW.  175 

survivors  had  but  little  leisure  to  lament  them. 
It  is  not  easy  to  read  Froissart's  account  of 
certain  battles,  serious  enough  in  their  results, 
without  being  strangely  impressed  by  the  boy 
ish  enthusiasm  with  which  the  combatants 
went  to  work ;  so  that  even  now,  five  centuries 
later,  our  blood  tingles  with  their  pleasurable 
excitement.  When  France  undertook  to  sup 
port  the  Karl  of  Flanders  against  Philip  van 
Arteveld  and  the  rebellious  citizens  of  Ghent, 
the  Flemish  army  entrenched  themselves  in 
a  strong  position  on  the  river  Lys,  destroy 
ing  all  bridges  save  one,  which  was  closely 
guarded.  The  French,  in  the  dead  of  night, 
crossed  the  river  in  rickety  little  boats,  a 
handful  of  men  at  a  time,  and  only  a  mile  or 
HO  distant  from  the  spot  where  nine  thousand 
of  the  enemy  lay  encamped.  Apparently  they 
regarded  this  hazardous  feat  as  the  gayest 
kind  of  a  lark,  crowding  like  schoolboys 
around  the  boats,  and  begging  to  be  taken  on 
board.  "  It  was  a  pleasure  to  see  with  what 
eagerness  they  embarked,"  says  the  historian  ; 
and  indeed,  so  great  was  the  emulation,  that 
only  men  of  noble  birth  and  tried  valor  were 
permitted  to  cross.  Not  a  single  varlet  accom- 


17G  VARIA. 

piinicd  them.  After  infinite  labor  and  danger, 
some  twelve  hundred  knights  —  the  flower  of 
French  chivalry  —  were  transported  to  the 
other  side  of  the  river,  where  they  spent  the 
rest  of  a  cold  and  stormy  November  night 
standing  knee-deep  in  the  marshes,  clad  in 
complete  armor,  and  without  food  or  fire.  At 
this  point  the  fun  ceases  to  sound  so  exhila 
rating  ;  but  we  are  assured  that  "  the  great 
attention  they  paid  to  be  in  readiness  kept 
up  their  spirits,  and  made  them  almost  forget 
their  situation."  When  morning  came,  these 
knights,  by  way  of  rest  and  breakfast,  crossed 
the  intervening  country,  fell  upon  the  Flemish 
ranlcs,  and  routed  them  with  great  slaughter ; 
for  what  could  a  mass  of  untrained  artisans 
do  against  a  small  body  of  valiant  and  accom 
plished  soldiers  ?  A  few  days  later,  the  de 
cisive  battle  of  Rosebecque  ended  the  war. 
Van  Arteveld  was  slain,  and  the  cause  of 
democracy,  of  "  the  ill  intentioned,"  as  Frois- 
sart  for  the  most  part  designates  the  toiling 
population  of  towns,  received  its  fatal  blow. 

Vet  this  courtly  chronicler  of  battles  and 
deeds  of  chivalry  is  not  without  a  sense  of 
justice  and  a  noble  compassion  for  the  poor. 


OLD    WINE  AND  NEW.  177 

He  disapproves  of  u  commonalties  "  when  they 
assert  their  claims  too  boisterously ;  he  fails 
to  detect  any  signs  of  sapience  in  a  mob  ;  and 
he  speaks  of  "  weavers,  fullers,  and  other  ill- 
intentioned  people,"  as  though  craftsmen  were 
necessarily  rebellious,  —  which  perhaps  was 
true,  and  not  altogether  a  matter  for  surprise. 
But  the  grievous  taxes  laid  upon  the  French 
peasantry  fill  him  with  indignation ;  the  dis 
tress  of  Ghent,  though  brought  about,  as  he 
believes,  by  her  own  pride  and  presumption, 
touches  him  so  deeply  that  he  grows  eloquent 
in  her  behalf ;  and  he  records  with  distinct 
approbation  the  occasional  efforts  made  by 
both  the  French  and  the  English  kings  to 
explain  to  their  patient  subjects  what  it  was 
they  were  fighting  about.  Eloquent  bishops, 
lie  tolls  us,  were  sent  to  preach  "  long  and  fine 
sermons,'* setting  forth  the  justice  of  the  re 
spective  claims.  u  In  truth,  it  was  but  right 
that  these  sovereigns,  since  tlicy  iccrc  deter 
mined  on  war,  should  explain  and  make  clear 
to  their  people  the  cause  of  the  quarrel,  that 
they  might  understand  it,  and  have  the  better 
will  to  assist  their  lords  and  monarchs." 
Above  all,  he  gives  us  a  really  charming  and 


178  VAR1A. 

cliccrful  picture  of  the  French  and  English 
fishermen,  who  went  quietly  about  their  daily 
toil,  and  bore  each  other  no  ill  will,  although 
their  countries  were  so  hard  at  war.  "  They 
were  never  interrupted  in  their  pursuits,"  he 
says,  "  nor  did  they  attack  each  other ;  but, 
on  the  contrary,  gave  mutual  assistance,  and 
bought  or  sold,  according  as  they  had  more 
iish  or  less  than  they  required.  For  if  they 
wore  to  meddle  in  the  national  strife,  there 
would  be  an  end  of  fishing,  and  none  would 
attempt  it  unless  supported  by  men-at-arms." 
So  perhaps  there  is  one  lesson  of  common 
sense  and  forbearance  we  may  learn,  even 
now,  from  those  barbarous  days  of  old. 

As  for  the  personal  touches  which  give  such 
curious  vitality  to  Froissart's  pages,  they  be 
long  naturally  to  an  unscientific  age,  when 
history,  —  or  what  passed  as  such,  -  -  bio 
graphy,  court  gossip,  and  legendary  lore  were 
all  mingled  together,  with  no  vexatious  sifting 
of  material.  The  chronicler  tells  us  in  ample 
detail  every  separate  clause  of  an  important 
treaty,  and  then  breaks  off  to  recount,  at  great 
length  and  with  commendable  gravity,  the 
story  of  the  Lord  de  Corasse  and  his  familiar 


OLD    WINE   AND   NEW.  179 

demon,  Orthon,  who  served  him  out  of  pure 
love,  and  visited  him  at  night,  to  the  vex 
ation  and  terror  of  his  lady  wife.  We  hear 
in  one  chapter  how  the  burghers  of  Ghent 
spoiled  all  the  pleasure  of  the  Lord  d'Estour- 
naz's  Christmas  by  collecting  and  carrying 
away  his  routs,  "  which  made  him  very  melan 
choly,"  as  well  it  might ;  and  in  the  next  we 
arc  told  in  splendid  phrases  of  the  death  of 
Duke  Wencoslaus  of  .Bohemia,  "  who  was,  in 
his  time,  magnificent,  blithe,  prudent,  amorous, 
and  polite.  God  have  mercy  on  his  soul ! " 
It  is  hard  to  see  how  anything  could  be  better 
described,  in  fewer  words,  than  the  disastrous 
expedition  of  William  of  Ilainault  against  the 
Frieslanders.  "  About  the  feast  of  St.  Kemy, 
William,  Earl  of  Ilainault,  collected  a  large 
body  of  men-at-arms,  knights,  and  squires, 
from  Ilainault,  Flanders,  Brabant,  Holland, 
Gueldres,  and  Juliers,  and,  embarking  them 
on  board  a  considerable  fleet  at  Dordrecht, 
made  sail  for  Friosland  ;  for  tho  Earl  consid 
ered  himself  as  lord  thereof.  If  the  Fries- 
landers  had  been  people  to  listen  to  tho 
legality  and  reasonableness  of  the  claim,  tho 
Earl  was  entitled  to  it.  But  as  they  were 


180  VARIA. 

obstinate,  ho  exerted  himself  to  obtain  it  by 
force,  and  was  slain,  an  well  as  a  great  many 
other  knights  and  squires.  God  forgive  them 
their  sins  !  " 

Surely  that  line  about  the  unreasonable 
Frieslauders  is  worthy  of  Carlyle,  —  of  Car- 
lyle  whose  grim  and  pregnant  humor  lurks 
beneath  sentences  that,  to  the  unwary,  seem 
as  innocent  as  the  sheathed  dagger  before  the 
blade  is  sprung.  lie  it  was  who  hated  with  a 
just  and  lively  abhorrence  all  constitutional 
histories,  and  all  philosophy  of  history,  as  like 
wise  "  empty  invoice  lists  of  Pitched  Battles 
and  Changes  of  Ministry,"  —  as  dead,  he  de 
clared,  as  hist  year's  almanacs,  "  to  which 
species  of  composition  they  bear,  in  several 
points  of  view,  no  inconsiderable  affinity." 
He  it  was,  moreover,  who  welded  together 
history  and  literature,  and  gave  us  their  per 
fect  and  harmonious  union  in  the  story  of  the 
44  Diamond  Necklace."  The  past  was  enough 
for  Carlylc,  when  he  worked  amid  her  faded 
parchments,  and  made  them  glow  with  renewed 
color  and  fire.  That  splendid  pageant  of 
events,  that  resistless  torrent  of  life,  that  long 
roll-call  of  honored  names  which  we  term 


OLD    \VJNJK  AND   NEW.  181 

comprehensively  history,  had  for  him  a  signifi 
cance  which  needed  neither  moral  nor  maxim 
to  confirm  it.  If  we  can  believe  with  him 
that  it  is  better  to  revere  great  men  than  to 
belittle  them,  better  to  worship  blindly  than 
to  censure  priggishly,  better  to  enlarge  our 
mental  vision  until  it  embraces  the  standards 
of  other  centuries  than  to  narrow  it  in  accord 
ance  with  the  latest  humanitarian  doctrine, — 
then  we  may  stray  safely  through  the  storied 
past,  until  even  Froissart,  writing  in  a  feudal 
chimney-corner  strange  tales  of  chivalry  and 
carnage,  will  have  for  us  a  message  of  little 
practical  service,  but  of  infinite  comfort  in 
hours  of  idleness  and  relaxation.  It  is  an 
engaging  task  to  leave  the  present,  so  weighted 
with  cumbersome  enigmas  and  ineffectual 
activity,  and  to  go  back,  step  by  step,  to  other 
days,  when  men  saw  life  in  simpler  aspects, 
and  moved  forward  unswervingly  to  the  at 
tainment  of  definite-  and  obvious  desires. 

One  voice  lias  been  recently  raised  with 
modest  persistence  in  behalf  of  old-fashioned 
history,  —  history  which  may  possibly  be  in 
accurate  here  and  there,  but  which  gives  to 
the  present  generation  some  vivid  insight  into 


182  VARIA. 

the  lives  of  other  generations  which  were  not 
without  importance  in  their  day.  Now  that 
we  are  striving  to  educate  every  class  of 
people,  whether  they  respond  to  our  advances 
or  not,  it  is  at  least  worth  while  to  make  their 
instruction  as  pleasant  and  as  profitable  as 
we  can.  Mr.  Augustus  Jessopp,  whose  know 
ledge  of  the  agricultural  classes  is  of  that 
practical  and  intimate  kind  which  comes  of 
living  with  them  for  many  years  in  sympathy 
and  friendship,  has  a  right  to  be  heard  when 
he  speaks  in  their  behalf.  If  they  must  bo 
taught  in  scraps  and  at  the  discretion  of 
committees,  he  believes  that  the  Extension 
lecturers  who  go  about  dispensing  "  small 
doses  of  Kuskin  and  water,  or  weak  dilutions 
of  Mr.  Addiiigton  Symonds,"  would  be  better 
employed  in  telling  the  people  something  of 
their  own  land  and  of  their  rude  forefathers. 
And  this  history,  he  insists,  should  be  local, 
full  of  detail,  popular  in  character,  and  with 
out  base  admixture  of  political  science,  so  that 
the  rustic  mind  may  accustom  itself  to  the 
thought  of  England,  in  all  Christian  ages,  as 
a  nation  of  real  people  ;  just  as  Tom  Tulliver 
woke  gradually,  under  the  stimulating  friction. 


OLD    WINE  AND  NEW.  183 

of  Maggie's  questions,  to  the  astonishing  con 
viction  that  the  Koinans  were  once  live  men 
and  women,  who  learned  their  mother  tongue 
through  some  easier  medium  than  the  Latin 
grammar. 

Again  and  again  Mr.  Jessopp  has  tried  the 
experiment  of  lecturing  on  local  antiquities 
and  the  dim  traditions  of  ancient  country 
parishes ;  and  he  has  always  found  that  these 
topics,  which  carried  with  them  some  homely 
and  familiar  flavor  of  the  soil,  awoke  a  deep 
and  abiding  interest  in  minds  to  which  ab 
stract  ethics  and  technical  knowledge  appealed 
alike  in  vain.  School  boards  may  raise  the 
cry  for  useful  information,  and  fancy  that  a 
partial  acquaintance  with  chlorides  and  phos 
phates  is  all  that  is  necessary  to  make  of  a 
sulky  yokel  an  intelligent  agriculturist  and  a 
contented  citizen  ;  but  a  man  must  awaken 
before  he  can  think,  and  think  before  he  can 
work,  and  work  before  he  can  realize  his  posi 
tion  and  meaning  in  the  universe.  And  it 
needs  a  livelier  voice  than  that  of  elementary 
chemistry  to  arouse  him,  "  The  Whigs,"  said 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  "  will  live  and  die  in  the 
belief  that  the  world  is  ruled  by  pamphlets 


184  VARIA. 

and  speeches ; "  and  a  great  many  excellent 
people  in  every  country  will  live  and  die  in  the 
belief  that  the  world  is  ruled  by  printed  books, 
full  of  proven  and  deriionstrable  truths.  But 
we,  the  world's  poor  children,  sick,  tired,  and 
fractious,  know  very  well  that  we  never  learn 
unless  we  like  our  lesson,  and  never  behave 
ourselves  unless  inspired  by  precept  and  ex 
ample.  The  history  of  every  nation  is  the 
heritage  of  its  sons  and  daughters  ;  and  the 
story  of  its  struggles,  sufferings,  misdeeds, 
and  glorious  atonements  is  the  story  that  keeps 
alive  in  all  our  hearts  that  sentiment  of  pa 
triotism,  without  which  we  are  speeding 
swiftly  on  our  path  to  national  corruption 
and  decay. 


THE  ROYAL  ROAD  OF  FICTION. 

"  A  TALE,"  says  that  charming  scholar  and 
critic,  M.  Jusserand,  "  is  the  first  key  to  the 
heart  of  a  child,  the  last  utterance  to  pene 
trate  the  fastnesses  of  age."  And  what  is 
true  of  the  individual  is  true  also  of  the  race. 
The  earliest  voice  listened  to  by  the  nations 
in  their  infancy  was  the  voice  of  the  story- 
toller.  Whether  ho  spoke  in  rude  prose  or 
in  ruder  rhyme,  his  was  the  eloquence  which 
won  a  hearing  everywhere.  All  through  the 
young  world's  vigorous,  ill-spent  manhood  it 
found  time  mid  wars,  and  pestilence,  and  far 
migrations  to  cherish  and  cultivate  the  first 
wild  art  of  fiction.  We,  in  our  chastened, 
wise,  and  melancholy  middle  age,  find  still 
our  natural  solace  in  this  kind  and  joyous 
friend.  And  when  mankind  grows  old,  so 
old  we  shall  have  mastered  all  the  knowledge 
we  are  seeking  now,  and  shall  have  found  our 
selves  as  far  from  happiness  as  ever,  I  doubt 
not  we  shall  bo  comforted  in  the  twilight  of 


ISO  VARIA. 

existence  with  the  same  cheerful  and  deceptive 
tales  we  hearkened  to  in  childhood.  Facts 
surround  us  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave. 
Truth  stares  us  coldly  in  the  face,  and  checks 
our  unmeaning  gayety  of  heart.  What  won 
der  that  we  turn  for  pleasure  and  distraction 
to  those  charming  dreams  with  which  the 
story-teller,  now  grown  to  be  a  novelist,  is 
ever  ready  to  lure  us  away  from  everything 
that  it  is  comfortable  to  forget. 

And  it  was  always  thus.  From  the  very 
beginning  of  civilization,  and  before  civiliza 
tion  was  well  begun,  the  royal  road  of  fiction 
ran  straight  to  the  hearts  of  men,  and  along 
it  traveled  the  gay  and  prosperous  spinners 
of  wondrous  tales  which  the  world  loved  well 
to  hear.  When  I  was  a  little  girl,  studying 
literature  in  the  hard  and  dry  fashion  then 
common  in  all  schools,  and  which  was  not 
without  its  solid  advantages  after  all,  I  was 
taught,  first  that  "  Pamela "  was  the  earliest 
English  novel ;  then  that  "  Robinson  Crusoe  " 
was  the  earliest  English  novel ;  then  that 
Lodge's  "  Rosalynde  "  was  the  earliest  English 
novel.  By  the  time  I  got  that  far  back,  I 
began  to  see  for  myself,  what  I  dare  say  all 


THE  ROYAL   ROAD   OF  FICTION.         187 

little  girls  are  learning  now,  that  the  earliest 
English  novel  dates  mistily  from  the  earliest 
English  history,  and  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  firm  starting-point  for  their  uncer 
tain  feet  to  gain.  Long,  long  before  Lodge's 
"Ilosalynde"  led  the  way  for  Shakespeare's 
"  Kosalind "  to  follow,  romantic  tales  were 
held  in  such  high  esteem  that  people  who 
were  fortunate  enough  to  possess  them  in 
manuscript  —  the  art  of  printing  not  having 
yet  cheapened  such  precious  treasures  —  left 
them  solemnly  by  will  to  their  equally  fortu 
nate  heirs.  In  1315,  Guy,  Earl  of  Warwick, 
bequeathed  to  Bordesloy  Abbey  in  Warwick 
shire  his  entire  library  of  thirty-nine  volumes, 
which  consisted  almost  exclusively,  like  the 
library  of  a  modern  young  lady,  of  stories, 
such  as  the  "  Komaunce  de  Troies,"  and  the 
"  Komaunce  d'Alisaundre."  In  142G,  Thomas, 
Duke  of  Exeter,  left  to  his  sister  Joan  a  single 
book,  perhaps  the  only  one  he  possessed,  and 
this  too  was  a  romance  on  that  immortal 
knight  and  lover,  Tristram. 

Earlier  even  than  Thomas  of  Exeter's  day, 
the  hardy  barons  of  England  had  discovered 
that  when  they  were  "  fcsted  and  fed,"  they 


188  VARIA. 

were  ready  to  be  amused,  and  that  there  was 
nothing  so  amusing  as  a  story.  In  the  twelfth 
century,  before  St.  Thomas  a  Becket  gave 
up  his  life  in  Canterbury  cloisters,  English 
knights  and  ladies  had  grown  familiar  with 
the  tragic  history  of  King  Lear,  the  exploits 
of  Jack  the  Giant  Killer,  the  story  of  King 
Arthur  and  of  the  enchanter  Merlin.  The 
earliest  of  these  tales  came  from  Brittany, 
and  were  translated  from  Armorican  into 
Latin  by  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  a  Benedic 
tine  monk,  and  a  benefactor  to  the  world  ;  but, 
by  the  following  century,  Robin  Hood,  Tom- 
a-Lincoln,  and  a  host  of  sturdy  English-born 
heroes  shared  in  the  popular  attention.  It 
must  have  been  inexpressibly  helpful  to  the 
writers  and  compilers  of  early  fiction  that  the 
uncritical  age  in  which  they  lived  had  not  yet 
been  vitiated  by  the  principles  of  realistic  art. 
The  modern  maxims  about  sinning  against  the 
probabilities,  and  the  novelist's  bondage  to 
truth,  had  not  then  been  invented ;  and  the 
man  who  told  a  story  was  free  to  tell  it  as  ho 
pleased.  His  readers  or  his  hearers  were 
seldom  disposed  to  question  his  assertions.  A 
knight  did  not  go  to  the  great  and  unnecessary 


THE  ROYAL  ROAD    OF  FICTION.        189 

trouble  of  learning  his  letters  in  order  to  doubt 
what  ho  read.  Merlin  was  as  real  to  him  as 
Robin  Hood.  He  believed  Sir  John  Mande- 
ville,  when  that  aecomplished  traveler  told 
him  of  a  race  of  men  who  had  eyes  in  the 
middle  of  their  foreheads.  It  was  a  curious 
fact,  but  the  unknown  world  was  full  of  greater 
mysteries  than  this.  He  believed  in  Prester 
John,  with  his  red  and  white  lions,  his  giants 
and  pigmies,  his  salamanders  that  built  cocoons 
like  silk-worms,  his  river  of  stones  that  rolled 
perpetually  with  a  mighty  reverberation  into 
a  sandy  sea.  Why,  indeed,  should  these  won 
ders  be  doubted ;  for  in  that  thrice  famous 
letter  sent  by  Prester  John  to  Manuel  Com- 
nenus,  Emperor  of  Constantinople,  did  he  not 
distinctly  say,  "No  vice  is  tolerated  in  our 
land,  and,  with  us,  no  one  lies." 

This  broad-minded,  liberal  credulity  made 
smooth  the  novelist's  path.  He  always  located 
his  romances  in  far  and  unknown  countries, 
where  anything  or  everything  might  reasona 
bly  be  expected  to  happen.  Scythia,  Parthia, 
Abyssinia,  were  favorite  latitudes ;  Bohemia 
could  always  serve  at  a  pinch ;  and  Arcadia, 
that  blessed  haven  of  romance,  remained  for 


190  VARIA. 

centuries  bis  happy  hunting -ground,  where 
shepherds  piped,  and  nymphs  danced  sweetly 
in  the  shade,  and  brave  knights  met  in  glorious 
combat,  and  lovers  dallied  all  day  long  under 
the  whispering  boughs.  In  Elizabeth's  day, 
Arcadia  had  reached  the  zenith  of  its  popular 
ity,  liobert  Green  had  peopled  its  dewy  fields 
with  amorous  swains,  and  Sir  Philip  Sidney 
had  described  its  hills  and  dales  in  the  four 
hundred  and  eighty  folio  pages  of  his  imper 
ishable  romance.  A  golden  land,  it  lies  before 
us  still,  brilliant  with  sunshine  that  shall  never 
fade.  Knights  and  noble  ladies  ride  through 
it  on  prancing  steeds.  Well-bred  shepherds, 
deeply  versed  in  love,  sing  charming  songs, 
and  extend  open-hearted  hospitality.  Shep 
herdesses,  chaste  and  fair,  lead  their  snowy 
flocks  by  meadows  and  rippling  streams. 
There  is  always  plenty  of  fighting  for  the 
knights  when  they  weary  of  plighting  their 
vows,  and  noble  palaces  spring  up  for  their 
entertainment  when  they  have  had  enough  of 
pastoral  pleasures  and  sylvan  fare.  Ah,  me ! 
We  who  have  passed  by  Arcadia,  and  dwell 
in  the  sad  haunts  of  men,  know  well  what  we 
have  lost.  Yet  was  there  not  a  day  when  the 


THE   ROYAL    ROAD   OF  FICTION.        191 

inhabitants  of  the  strange  new  world,  a  world 
not  yet  familiar  with  commercial  depression 
and  the  stock  exchange,  were  thus  touchingly 
described  in  English  verse  ? 

"  Guiltless  men  who  danced  away  their  time, 
Fresh  as  their  groves,  and  happy  as  their  clime." 

And  what  gayer  irresponsibility  could  be 
found  even  in  the  fields  of  Arcadia? 

"In  Elizabeth's  day,"  says  M.  Jusserand, 
"  adventurous  narratives  were  loved  for  adven 
ture's  sake.  Probability  was  only  a  secondary 
consideration."  Geographical  knowledge  be 
ing  in  its  innocent  infancy,  people  were  curious 
about  foreign  countries,  and  decently  grateful 
for  information,  true  or  false.  When  a  wan 
dering  knight  of  romance  "  sailed  to  Bohemia," 
nobody  saw  any  reason  why  he  should  not,  and 
readers  were  merely  anxious  to  know  what 
happened  to  him  when  he  got  there.  So  great, 
indeed,  was  the  demand  for  fiction  in  the  reign 
of  the  virgin  queen  that  writers  actually  suc 
ceeded  in  supporting  themselves  by  this  species 
of  composition,  a  test  equally  applicable  to-day ; 
and  it  is  worth  while  to  remember  that  the 
prose  tales  of  Nash,  Green,  and  Sidney  were 
translated  into  French  more  than  a  century 


192  VARIA. 

before  that  distinction  was  conferred  on  any 
play  of  Shakespeare's. 

It  need  not  be  supposed,  however,  that 
Komauce,  in  her  triumphant  progress  through 
the  land,  met  with  no  bitter  and  sustained 
hostility.  From  the  very  beginning  she  took 
the  world  by  storm,  and  from  the  very  begin 
ning  the  godly  denounced  and  reviled  her. 
The  jesters  and  gleemen  and  minstrels  who 
relieved  the  insufferable  ennui  of  our  rude 
forefathers  in  those  odd  moments  when  they 
were  neither  fighting  nor  eating,  were  all 
branded  as  "  Satan's  children  "  by  that  relent 
less  accuser,  "  Piers  Plowman."  In  vain  the 
simple  story-spinners  who  narrated  the  ex 
ploits  of  Kobin  Hood  and  Tom-a-Lincoln 
claimed  that  their  merry  legends  were  "  not 
altogether  unprofitable,  nor  in  any  way  hurt 
ful,  but  very  fitte  to  passe  away  the  tediousness 
of  the  long  winter  evenings."  It  was  not  in 
this  cheerful  fashion  that  the  "  unco  gude  "  — 
a  race  as  old  as  humanity  itself  —  considered 
the  long  winter  evenings  should  be  passed. 
Koger  Ascham  can  find  no  word  strong  enough 
in  which  to  condemn  "certaine  bookcs  of 
Chivalrie,  the  whole  pleasure  of  whiche  stand- 


THE   ROYAL   ROAD   OF  FICTION.         193 

eth  in  two  speciall  poyntcs,  in  open  man 
slaughter  and  boldo  bawd  rye."  The  beautiful 
old  stories,  so  simply  and  reverently  handled  by 
Sir  Thomas  Malory  in  the  "  Morte  d'Arthur," 
were  regarded  with  horror  and  aversion  by 
this  gentle  ascetic ;  yet  the  lessons  that  they 
taught  were  mainly  "curtosye,  humanyto, 
friendlynesso,  hardynesse  and  love."  The  val 
orous  deeds  of  Guy  of  Warwiek  and  Thomas 
of  Heading  lent  eheer  to  many  a  hearth,  and 
sent  many  a  man  with  brave  and  joyous  heart 
to  battle ;  yet  the  saintly  Stubbes,  who  loved 
not  joyousness,  lamented  loudly  that  the  unre- 
generate  persisted  in  reading  such  "  toys,  fan 
tasies  and  babbleries,"  in  place  of  that  more 
dolorous  fiction,  Fox's  "  Book  of  Martyrs." 
Even  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  innocent  "Arcadia" 
was  pronounced  by  Milton  a  "  vain,  amato- 
rious "  book ;  and  the  great  poet  who  wrote 
"  Comus  "  and  "  L'  Allegro  "  harshly  and  bit 
terly  censured  King  Charles  because  that  un 
happy  monarch  beguiled  the  sad  hours  of 
prison  with  its  charming  pages,  and  even,  oh ! 
crowning  offense  against  Puritanism  !  copied 
for  spiritual  comfort,  when  condemned  to  die, 
the  beautiful  and  reverent  invocation  of  its 


194  VARIA. 

young  heroine,  Pamela.  "  The  king  hath,  as 
it  were,  unhallowed  and  unchristened  the  very 
duty  of  prayer  itself,"  wrote  Milton  merci 
lessly.  "  Who  would  have  imagined  so  little 
fear  in  him  of  the  true  all-seeing  deity,  so  lit 
tle  care  of  truth  in  his  last  words,  or  honor 
to  himself  or  to  his  friends,  as,  immediately 
before  his  death,  to  pop  into  the  hand  of  that 
grave  bishop  who  attended  him,  for  a  special 
relique  of  his  saintly  exercises,  a  prayer  stolen 
word  by  word  from  the  mouth  of  a  heathen 
woman  praying  to  a  heathen  god." 

But  not  even  the  mighty  voice  of  Milton 
could  check  the  resistless  progress  of  romantic 
fiction.  Not  even  dominant  Puritanism  could 
stamp  it  ruthlessly  down.  When  "  Pilgrim's 
Progress,"  the  great  pioneer  of  religious  novels, 
was  given  to  the  world,  England  read  it  with 
devout  delight ;  but  she  read  too,  with  admira 
ble  inconsistency,  those  endless  tales,  those 
"  romances  de  longue  haleine,"  which  crossed 
the  channel  from  France,  and  replaced  the  less 
decorous  Italian  stories  so  popular  in  the  pre 
ceding  century.  Some  of  these  prolix  and 
ponderous  volumes,  as  relentless  in  dullness  as 
in  length,  held  their  own  stoutly  for  centuries, 


THE   ROYAL   ROAD    OF  FICTION.         195 

and  won  allegiance  where  it  seemed  least  due. 
There  is  an  incredible  story  narrated  of  Ra 
cine,  that,  when  a  student  at  Port  Royal,  his 
favorite  reading  was  an  ancient  prose  epic 
entitled  "  Ethiopica ;  the  history  of  Theagenes 
and  Chariclea."  This  guileless  work,  being 
too  bulky  for  concealment,  was  discovered  by 
his  director  and  promptly  burned,  notwith 
standing  its  having  been  written  by  a  bishop, 
which  ought  to  have  saved  it  from  the  flames. 
Racine,  undaunted,  procured  another  copy, 
and  fearing  it  would  meet  with  the  same  cruel 
fate,  he  actually  committed  large  portions  of 
it  to  memory,  so  that  nothing  should  deprive 
him  of  his  enjoyment.  Yet  "  Ethiopica " 
would  seem  as  absolutely  unreadable  a  book 
as  even  a  bishop  ever  wrote.  The  heroine, 
though  chaste  as  she  is  beautiful,  has  so  many 
lovers,  all  with  ecpially  unpronounceable  names, 
and  so  many  battles  arc  fought  in  her  behalf, 
that  no  other  memory  than  Racine's  could 
have  made  any  sort  of  headway  with  them; 
while,  just  in  the  middle  of  the  story,  an  old 
gentleman  is  suddenly  introduced,  who,  with 
out  provocation,  starts  to  work  and  tells  all  his 
life's  adventures,  two  hundred  pages  long. 


196  VARIA. 

The  real  promoters  and  encouragers  of  ro 
mance,  however,  —  the  real  promoters  and  en 
couragers  of  fiction  in  every  age  —  were  women, 
and  this  is  more  than  enough  to  account  for 
its  continued  triumphs.  There  was  little  use  in 
the  stubborn  old  Puritan,  Powell,  protesting 
against  the  idle  folly  of  females  who  wasted 
their  time  over  Sidney's  "  Arcadia/'  when  they 
ought  to  have  been  studying  the  household 
recipe  books.  Long  before  Cromwell  the 
mighty  revolutionized  England,  women  had 
wearied  of  recipes  as  steady  reading,  and  had 
turned  their  wanton  minds  to  matters  more 
seductive.  Wise  and  wary  was  the  writer  who 
kept  these  fair  patronesses  well  in  view.  When 
John  Lyly  gave  to  the  world  his  amazing 
"  Euphues,"  he  dexterously  announced  that  it 
was  written  for  the  amusement  and  the  edifi 
cation  of  women,  and  that  he  asked  for  it  no 
better  fate  than  to  be  read  by  them  in  idle 
moments,  when  they  were  weary  of  playing 
with  their  lap-dogs.  For  a  young  man  of 
twenty-five,  Lyly  showed  an  admirable  know 
ledge  of  feminine  inconsistency.  By  alter 
nately  flattering  and  upbraiding  the  subtle 
creatures  lie  hoped  to  please,  now  sweetly 


THE   ROYAL   ROAD    OF  FICTION.        197 

praising  their  incomparable  perfections,  now 
fiercely  reviling  their  follies  and  their  sins,  he 
succeeded  in  making  "Euphues"  the  best- 
read  book  in  England,  and  he  chained  with 
affectations  and  foolish  conceits  the  free  and 
noble  current  of  English  speech. 

It  was  the  abundance  of  leisure  enjoyed 
by  women  that  gave  the  tcn-volumcd  French 
romance  its  marvelous  popularity;  and  ono 
sympathizes  a  little  with  Mr.  Pepys,  though  lie 
was  such  a  chronic;  grumbler,  when  he  laments 
in  his  diary  that  Mrs.  Pepys  would  not  only 
read  "  Le  Grand  Cyrus  "  all  night,  but  would 
talk  about  it  all  day,  "  though  nothing  to  the 
purpose,  nor  in  any  good  manner/'  remarks 
this  censorious  husband  and  critic.  More  mel 
ancholy  still  to  contemplate  is  the  early  ap 
pearance  on  the  scene  of  female  novelists  who 
wrote  vicious  twaddle  for  other  women  to 
read.  We  may  fancy  that  this  particular 
plague  is  a  development  of  the  nineteenth 
century ;  but  twenty  years  before  the  virtuous 
Pamela  saw  the  light,  Eliza  I  Icy  wood  was 
doing  her  little  best  to  demoralize  the  minds 
and  manners  of  her  countrywomen.  Eliza 
Hey  wood  was,  in  Mr.  Gosse's  opinion, — and 


198  VARIA. 

he  is  one  of  the  few  critics  who  has  expressed 
(titt/  opinion  on  the  subject,  —  the  Ouicla  of 
her  period.  The  very  names  of  her  heroines, 
Lnssellia,  Idalia,  and  Douxmoure,  are  Oui- 
desque,  and  their  behavior  would  warrant  their 
immediate  presentation  to  that  society  which 
the  authoress  of  "  Strathmoro  "  has  so  sympa- 
thctically  portrayed.  These  "lovely  Ineon- 
siderates,"  though  bad  enough  for  a  reforma 
tory,  are  all  as  sensitive  as  nuns.  They  "sink 
fainting  on  a  Bank  "  if  they  so  much  as  receive 
letters  from  their  lovers.  Their  "  Limbs  forget 
their  Functions  "  on  the  most  trifling  provoca 
tion.  "  Stormy  Passions  "  and  "  deadly  Mel 
ancholy  "  succeed  each  other  with  monotonous 
vehemence  in  their  "  tortured  Bosoms,"  and 
when  they  fly  repentant  to  some  remote  Italian 
convent,  whole  cities  mourn  their  loss. 

Eliza  I  ley  wood's  stories  arc  probably  as  im 
becile  and  as  depraved  as  any  fiction  we  pos 
sess  to-day,  but  the  women  of  England  read 
them  eagerly.  They  read  too  the  iniquitous 
rubbish  of  Mrs.  Aphra  Behn  ;  and  no  incident 
can  better  illustrate  the  tremendous  change 
that  swept  over  public  sentiment  with  the 
introduction  of  good  and  dece.it  novels  than 


THE  ROYAL   ROAD   OF   FICTION.        199 

the  well-known  tale  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's 
aunt,  Mrs.  Keith  of  Ravelston.  This  sprightly 
old  lady  took  a  fancy,  when  in  her  eightieth 
year,  to  re-read  Mrs.  Bella's  books,  and  per 
suaded  Sir  Walter  to  send  them  to  her.  A 
hasty  glanee  at  them  was  more  than  enough, 
and  back  they  eame  to  Seott  with  an  entreaty 
that  he  would  put  them  in  the  lire.  The 
ancient  gentlewoman  confessed  herself  unable 
to  linger  over  pages  which  she  had  not  been 
ashamed  nor  abashed  to  hear  read  aloud  to 
large  parties  in  her  youth. 

It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that 
Aphra  Behn,  uncompromisingly  bad  though 
she  was,  wrote  the  first  English  didactic 
novel,  "  Oroonoka,"  the  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  " 
of  its  day.  It  has  the  advantage  of  "  Uncle 
Tom  "  in  being  a  true  tale,  Mrs.  Behn  having 
seen  the  slave,  Oroonoka,  and  his  wife,  Imoinda, 
in  the  West  Indies,  and  having  witnessed  his 
tragic  fate.  It  was  written  at  the  solicitation 
of  Charles  II.,  and  was  a  popular  anti-slavery 
novel,  with  certain  points  of  resemblance  to 
Mrs.  Stowe's  famous  book ;  in  the  grace  and 
beauty  of  its  Africans,  for  example ;  in  the 
strength  and  constancy  of  their  affections,  and 


200  VARIA. 

in  the  lavish  nobility  of  their  sentiments. 
Mrs.  Belm  knew  as  well  as  Mrs.  Stowe  that, 
if  you  want  to  produce  a  strong  effect,  you 
must  not  be  too  chary  of  your  colors. 

When  the  time  came  for  the  great  flowering 
of  English  fiction,  when  Fielding  and  Richard- 
sou  took  England  by  storm,  and  France  con 
fessed  herself  beaten  in  the  field  ("  Who 
would  have  thought,"  wrote  the  Marquis 
d'Argenson,  "  that  the  English  would  write 
novels,  and  better  ones  than  ours  ?  "),  then 
it  was  that  women  asserted  themselves  dis 
tinctly  as  patronesses  well  worth  the  pleasing. 
To  Smollett  and  Defoe  they  had  never  given 
whole-hearted  approbation.  Such  robustly 
masculine  writing  was  scarcely  in  their  way. 
But  Fielding,  infinitely  greater  than  these, 
met  with  no  warmer  favor  at  their  hands.  It 
is  easy  to  account  for  the  present  unpopularity 
of  "  Tom  Joneses  "  in  decorous  households  by 
saying  that  modest  women  do  not  consider  it 
fit  for  them  to  read.  That  covers  the  ground 
now  to  perfection.  But  the  fact  remains  that, 
when  "  Tom  Jones "  was  written,  everybody 
did  consider  it  fit  to  read.  Why  not,  when  all 
that  it  contained  was  seen  about  them  day  by 


THE  ROYAL  ROAD   OF  FICTION.        201 

day?  Its  author,  like  every  other  great  nov 
elist,  described  life  as  he  found  it.  Arcadia 
had  passed  away,  and  big  libertine  London 
offered  a  scant  assortment  of  Arcadian  virtues. 
Fielding  had  nothing  to  tell  that  might  not 
have  been  heard  any  day  at  one  of  Sir  Robert 
Walpole's  dinner-parties,  lie  had  the  merit 
—  not  too  common  now  —  of  never  confusing 
vice  with  virtue;  though  it  must  be  confessed 
that,  like  Dumas  and  Scott  and  Thackeray, 
he  took  very  kindly  to  his  scamps ;  and  we  all 
know  how  angry  a  recent  critic  permits  himself 
to  be  because  Thackeray  calls  Ilawdon  Craw- 
ley  "Jionest  Rawdon."  As  far  as  can  -be 
seen,  Fielding  never  realized  the  grossness 
of  his  books.  He  prefaced  "  Tom  Jones  "  with 
a  beautiful  little  sermon  about  "  the  solid 
inward  comfort  of  mind  which  is  the  sure 
companion  of  innocence  and  virtue  ; "  and  lie 
took  immense  credit  to  himself  for  having 
written  "  nothing  prejudicial  to  the  cause  of 
religion  and  virtue,  nothing  inconsistent  with 
the  strictest  rules  of  decency,  nor  which  can 
offend  even  the  chastest  eye  in  the  perusal." 
What  more  than  this  could  be  claimed  by  the 
authors  of  "  The  Old  Homestead  "  and  "  Little 
Lord  Fauntleroy  "  ? 


202  VARfA. 

I  do  not  for  one  moment  believe  that  it  was 
the  blithe  and  brutal  coarseness  of  Fielding's 
novels  that  exiled  them  from  the  female  heart, 
that  inconsistent  heart  which  never  fluttered 
over  the  more  repellent  indecency  of  "  Pamela." 
Insidious  influences  were  at  work  within  the 
dovecotes.  The  eighteenth  -  century  woman, 
while  loss  given  to  self-analysis  and  self-asser 
tion  than  her  successor  to-day,  was  just  as 
conscious  of  her  own  nature,  its  resistless  force, 
its  inalienable  laws,  its  permanent  limitations ; 
and  in  Richardson  she  recognized  the-  artist 
who  had  divined  her  subtleties,  and  had  jnven 

o 

them  form  and  color.  His  correspondence  with 
women  is  unlike  anything  else  the  period  lias 
to  show.  To  him  they  had  an  independence 
of  thought  and  action  which  it  took  the  rest 
of  mankind  a  hundred  years  longer  to  concede  ; 
and  it  is  not  surprising  to  see  the  fervent 
homage  this  stout  little  tradesman  of  sixty 
received  from  his  female  flatterers,  when  we 
remember  that  he  and  he  alone  in  all  his 
century  had  looked  into  the  rebellious  secrets 
of  their  hearts  with  understanding  and  with 
reverence. 

To   any  other  man   than   Richardson,  the 


M'lIE  ROYAL   ROAD    OF  FICTION.        203 

devout  attentions  of  so  many  women  would 
have  been  a  trifle  fatiguing.  They  wrote  him 
letters  as  long  as  Clarissa  Harlowe's.  They 
poured  out  their  sentiments  on  endless  reams 
of  paper.  They  told  him  how  they  walked 
up  and  down  their  rooms,  shedding  torrents 
of  tears  over  his  heroine's  distress,  unable 
to  either  go  on  with  the  book,  or  to  put  it 
resolutely  down.  They  told  him  how,  when 
u  Clarissa  "  was  beiiiir  read  aloud  in  a  bedehain- 

t> 

ber,  the  maid  who  was  eurli'ig  her  mistress's 
hair  wopt  so  bitterly  sho  could  not  go  on  with 
her  work,  so  was  given  a  crown  for  her  sensi 
bility,  and  sent  out  of  the  room.  They  im 
plored  and  entreated  him  to  end  his  story 
happily;  "a  turn,'*  wrote  one  fair  enthusiast, 
u  that  will  make  your  almost  despairing  readers 
mad  with  joy."  Richardson  purred  com 
placently  over  these  letters,  like  a  sleek  old 
cat,  and  lie  answered  every  one  of  them,  in 
stead  of  pitching  them  unread  into  the  fire. 
Yet,  nevertheless,  true  and  great  artist  that 
lie  was,  in  spito  of  all  his  vanity,  these  passion 
ate  solicitations  moved  him  not  one  hair's 
breadth  from  his  path.  "  As  well,"  says  Mr. 
Birrcll,  "hope  for  a  happy  ending  for  King 


204  VARIA. 

Lear  as  for  Clarissa  Harlowe."  She  died, 
and  England  dissolved  herself  in  tears,  and 
gay,  sentimental  France  lifted  up  her  voice 
and  wept  aloud,  and  Germany  joined  in  the 
sad  chorus  of  lamentations,  and  even  phleg 
matic  Holland  was  heard  bewailing  from  afar 
the  great  tragedy  of  the  literary  world.  This 
is  no  fancy  statement.  Men  swore  while 
women  wept.  Good  Dr.  Johnson  hung  his 
despondent  head,  and  ribald  Colley  Gibber 
vowed  with  a  great  oath  that  this  incompara 
ble  heroine  should  not  die.  Years  afterwards, 
when  Napoleon  was  first  consul,  an  English 
gentleman  named  Lovelace  was  presented  to 
him,  whereupon  the  consul  brightened  visibly, 
and  remarked,  "  Why,  that  is  the  name  of 
Clarissa  Harlowe's  lover !  "  —  an  incident 
which  won,  and  won  deservedly  for  Bona 
parte,  the  lifelong  loyalty  of  Ilazlitt. 

Meanwhile  Richardson,  writing  quietly  away 
in  his  little  summer  -  house,  produced  Sir 
Charles  Grandison,  a  hero  who  is  perhaps  as 
famous  for  his  priggishness  as  Lovelace  is 
famous  for  his  villainy.  I  think,  myself,  that 
poor  Sir  Charles  has  been  unfairly  handled, 
lie  is  not  half  such  a  prig  as  Daniel  De~ 


THE  ROYAL  ROAD   OF  FICTION.        205 

ronda  ;  but  ho  develops  his  priggislmess  with 
such  ample  detail  through  so  many  leisurely 
volumes.  Richardson  loved  him,  and  tried 
hard  to  make  his  host  of  female  readers  love 
him  too,  which  they  did  in  a  somewhat  per 
functory  and  lukewarm  fashion.  Indeed,  it 
should  in  justice  be  remembered  that  this 
eighteenth -century  novelist  intended  all  his 
books  to  be  didactic.  They  seem  now  at  times 
too  painful,  too  detestable  for  endurance  ;  but 
when  "  Pamela,"  with  all  its  loathsome  details, 
was  published,  it  was  actually  commended 
from  the  pulpit,  declared  to  be  better  than 
twenty  sermons,  and  placed  by  the  side  of  the 
Bible  for  its  moral  influence.  Richardson 
himself  tells  us  a  curiously  significant  anec 
dote  of  his  childhood.  When  he  was  a  little 
boy,  eleven  years  old,  he  heard  his  mother 
and  some  gossips  complaining  of  a  quarrel 
some  and  acrimonious  neighbor.  lie  promptly 
wrote  her  a  long  letter  of  remonstrance,  quot 
ing  freely  from  the  scriptures  to  prove  to  her 
the  evil  of  her  ways.  The  woman,  being  nat 
urally  very  angry,  complained  to  his  mother 
of  his  impertinence,  whereupon  she,  with  true 
maternal  pride,  commended  his  principles, 


20G  VARIA. 

while  gently  censuring  the  liberty  he  had 
taken. 

With  Richardson's  splendid  triumph  to  spur 
them  on,  the  passion  of  Englishwomen  for 
novel  •  reading  reached  its  height.  Young 
girls,  hitherto  debarred  from  this  diversion, 
began  more  and  more  to  taste  the  forbidden 
sweets,  and  wise  men,  like  Dr.  Johnson, 
meekly  acknowledged  that  there  was  no  stop 
ping  them.  When  Frances  Chamberlayne 
Sheridan  told  him  that  she  never  allowed  her 
little  daughter  to  read  anything  but  the 
"  Rambler,"  or  matters  equally  instructive,  he 
answered  with  all  his  customary  candor : 
"  Then,  madam,  you  are  a  fool !  Turn  your 
daughter's  wits  loose  in  your  library.  If  she 
be  well  inclined,  she  will  choose  only  good 
food.  If  otherwise,  all  your  precautions  will 
amount  to  nothing."  Both  Charles  Lamb  and 
Ruskin  cherished  similar  opinions,  but  the 
sentiment  was  more  uncommon  in  Dr.  John 
son's  day,  and  we  know  how  even  he  re 
proached  good  Hannah  More  for  quoting  from 
"  Tom  Jones." 

With  or  without  permission,  however,  the 
girls  read  gayly  on.  In  Garrick's  epilogue 


TlJjK  ROYAL   ROAD   OF  FICTION.        207 

to  Column's  farce,  "  Polly  Honeycomb?,"  the 
wayward  young  heroine  confesses  her  lively 
gratitude  for  all  the  dangerous  knowledge  she 
has  gleaned  from  novels. 

"So  much  these  dear  instructors  change  and  win  us, 
Without  their  light  wo  ne'er  should  know  what  'a  in  us. 
Hero  we  ut  once  supply  our  childish  wants, 
Novels  are  hotbeds  for  your  forward  plants." 

Later  on,  Sheridan  gave  us  the  humortal  Lydia 
Languish  feeding  her  sentimentality  upon  that 
"  evergreen  tree  of  diabolical  knowledge,"  the 
circulating  library.  Lydia's  taste  in  books  is 
catholic,  but  not  altogether  free  from  reproach. 
"  Fling  4  Peregrine  Pickle  '  under  the  toilet," 
she  cries  to  Lucy,  when  surprised  by  a  visit 
from  Mrs.  Malaprop  and  Sir  Anthony. 
"  Throw  '  Roderick  Random  '  into  the  closet. 
Put  *  The  Innocent  Adultery '  into  '  The  Whole 
Duty  of  Man.'  Thrust  'Lord  Aimworlh ' 
under  the  sofa.  Cram  '  Ovid '  behind  the 
bolster.  Put  *Thc  Man  of  Feeling'  into  your 
pocket.  There  —  now  for  them  !  " 

How  "  The  Man  of  Feeling  "  ever  went  into 
Lucy's  pocket  remains  a  mystery,  for  it  takes 
many  volumes  to  hold  that  discursive  romance, 
where  everything  from  character  to  clothes  is 


208  VARIA. 

described  with  relentless  minuteness.  If  a 
lady  goes  to  a  ball,  we  are  not  merely  told  that 
she  looked  radiant  in  "  white  and  gold,"  or  in 
"  scarlet  tulle,"  after  the  present  slipshod  fash 
ion  ;  but  we  are  carefully  informed  that  "  a 
scarf  of  cerulean  tint  flew  between  her  right 
shoulder  and  her  left  hip,  being  buttoned  at 
each  end  by  a  row  of  rubies.  A  coronet  of 
diamonds,  through  which  there  passed  a  white 
branch  of  the  feathers  of  the  ostrich,  was  in 
serted  on  the  left  decline  of  her  lovely  head." 
And  so  on,  until  the  costume  is  complete. 

Uy  this  time  women  had  regularly  enrolled 
themselves  in  the  victorious  army  of  novel- 
writers,  and  had  won  fame  and  fortune  in  the 
field.  Consider  the  brilliant  and  instantane 
ous  success  of  Frances  Burney.  Think  of  the 
excitement  sho  aroused,  and  tho  honors  heaped 
thick  and  fast  upon  her.  A  woman  of  twenty- 
six  when  she  wrote  "  Evelina,"  she  was  able, 
by  dint  of  short  stature  and  childish  ways,  to 
pass  for  a  girl  of  seventeen,  which  increased 
amazingly  the  popular  interest  in  her  novel. 
Sheridan  swore  he  could  not  believe  so  young 
a  thing  could  manifest  such  genius,  and  begged 
her  to  write  him  a  comedy  on  the  spot.  Sir 


THE  ROYAL   ROAD   OF  FICTION.        209 

Joshua  Reynolds  professed  actual  fear  of  such 
keen  wit  and  relentless  observation.  Dr. 
Johnson  vowed  that  llichordson  had  written 
nothing  finer,  and  Fielding  nothing  so  fine  as 
"  Evelina ; "  and  playfully  protested  he  was 
too  proud  to  eat  cold  mutton  for  dinner  when 
he  sat  by  Miss  Burney's  side.  Posterity,  it  is 
true,  while  preserving  "  Evelina  "  with  great 
pride,  has  declined  to  place  it  by  the  side  of 
"  Tom  Jones  "  or  "  Clarissa  Ilarlowo ;  "  but 
if  we  had  our  choice  between  the  praise  of 
posterity  which  was  Miss  Austen's  portion, 
and  the  praise  of  contemporaries  which  was 
Miss  Burney's  lof,  I  doubt  not  we  should  bo 
wise  enough  to  take  our  applause  off-hand,  — 
44  dashed  in  our  faces,  sounded  in  our  ears," 
as  Johnson  said  of  Garrick,  and  leave  the 
future  to  look  after  itself. 

It  is  pleasant,  however,  to  think  that  the 
first  good  woman  novelist  had  her  work  over 
rather  than  under  estimated.  It  is  pleasant 
also  to  contemplate  the  really  bewildering 
career  of  Maria  Edgeworth.  Miss  Edge- 
worth's  books  are  agreeable  reading,  and  her 
children's  stories  are  among  the  very  best  ever 
written  ;  but  it  is  not  altogether  easy  to  under- 


210  I'AK/A. 

stand  why  France  and  England  contended  to 
do  her  honor.  When  she  went  to  London  or 
to  Paris  she  became  the  idol  of  brilliant  and 
fashionable  people.  Peers  and  poets  united 
in  her  praise.  Like  Mrs.  Jarlcy,  she  was  the 
delight  of  the  nobility  and  gentry.  The  Duke 
of  Wellington  wrote  verses  to  her.  Lord 
Byron,  whom  she  detested,  extolled  her  gener 
ously.  Moore  pronounced  her  "  delightful." 
Macaulay  compared  the  return  of  the  Absentee 
to  the  return  of  Ulysses  in  the  u  Odyssey." 
Sir  Wa'.ter  Scott  took  forcible  possession  of 
her,  and  carried  her  away  to  Abbotsford, — 
a  too  generous  reward,  it  would  seem,  for  all 
she  ever  did.  Sydney  Smith  delighted  in  her. 
Mrs.  Somervillc,  the  learned,  and  Mrs.  Fry, 
the  benignant,  sought  her  friendship ;  and 
finally,  Mine,  do  Stacl,  who  considered  Jane 
Austen's  novels  "  vulgar,"  protested  that  Miss 
Edgeworth  was  "  worthy  of  enthusiasm." 

Now  this  was  all  very  charming,  and  very 
enjoyable ;  but  with  such  rewards  following 
thick  and  fust  upon  successful  story- writing, 
it  is  hardly  surprising  that  every  year  saw  the 
band  of  literary  aspirants  increase  and  mul 
tiply  amazingly.  People  were  beginning  to 


TI/JS  ROYAL   ROAD   OF  FICTION.        211 

learn  how  easy  it  was  to  write  a  book.  Al 
ready  Hannah  More  had  bewailed  the  ever 
increasing  number  of  novelists,  "  their  unpar 
alleled  fecundity,'*  and  "  the  frightful  facility 
of  this  species  of  composition/'  What  would 
she  think  if  she  were  living  now,  and  could  see 
over  a  thousand  novels  published  every  year 
in  England?  Already  Mrs.  Iladcliffe  had 
woven  around  English  hearths  the  spell  of  her 
rather  feeble  terrors,  and  young  and  old  shud 
dered  and  quaked  in  the  subterranean  corri 
dors  of  castles  amid  the  gloomy  Apennines. 
Why  a  quiet,  cheerful,  retiring  woman  like 
Mrs.  Kadeliffe,  who  hated  notoriety,  and  who 
loved  country  life,  and  afternoon  drives,  and  all 
that  was  comfortable  and  commonplace,  should 
have  written  "The  Mysteries  of  Udolpho" 
passes  our  comprehension ;  but  write  it  she 
did,  and  England  received  it  with  a  mad  de 
light  she  has  never  manifested  for  any  tri 
umph  of  modern  realism.  The  volume,  we  are 
assured,  was  too  often  torn  asunder  by  frantic 
members  of  a  household  so  that  it  might  pass 
from  hand  to  hand  more  rapidly  than  if  it 
held  together. 

Mrs.    Kadeliffe   not    only   won  fame    and 


212  VARIA. 

amassed  a  considerable  fortune,  —  she  received 
five  hundred  pounds  for  "Udolpho"  and  eight 
hundred  for  "The  Italian/'  —  but  she  gave 
such  impetus  to  the  novel  of  horrors,  which 
hud  been  set  going  by  Horace  Walpolo's 
44  Castle  of  Otranto,"  tluit  for  years  England 
was  oppressed  and  excited  by  these  dreadful 
literary  nightmares.  Matthew  —  otherwise 
44  Monk  "  -  Lewis,  llobert  Charles  Maturin, 
and  a  host  of  feebler  imitators,  wrote  grisly 
stories  of  ghosts,  and  murders,  and  nameless 
crimes,  and  supernatural  visitations.  Horrors 
are  piled  on  horrors  in  these  dismal  and  sul 
phurous  tales.  Blue  lire  envelops  us,  and  per 
severing  spectres,  whu  ^  ve  striven  a  hundred 
years  for  burial  rites,  sit  »y  their  victims'  bed 
sides  and  recite  dolorous  verses,  which  is  more 
than  any  self-respecting  spectre  ought  to  do. 
Compacts  with  Satan  are  as  numerous  as  bar 
gain  counters  in  our  city  shops.  Suicides 
alternate  briskly  with  assassinations.  In  one 
melancholy  story,  the  despairing  heroine  agrees 
to  meet  her  lover  iu  a  lonely  church,  where 
they  intend  stabbing  themselves  sociably  to 
gether.  Unhappily,  it  rains  hard  all  the  after 
noon,  and  —  with  an  unexpected  touch  of  real- 


THE   HOYAL   ROAD   OF  FICTION.        213 

ism  —  she  is  miserably  afraid  the  bad  weather 
will  keep  her  indoors.  "  The  storm  was  so  vio 
lent,'1  we  are  told,  "  that  Augusta  often  feared 
she  eould  not  go  out  at  the  appointed  time. 
Frequently  did  she  throw  up  the  sash,  and  view 
with  anxious  looks  the  eonvulscd  elements. 
At  half  past  five  the  weather  cleared,  a.nd 
Augusta  felt  a  fearful  joy." 

It  might  have  been  supposed  that  the  gay, 
good-humored  satire  of  "  Northanger  Abbey  " 
would  have  laughed  these  tragic  absurdities 
from  the  land.  But  Miss  Austen  alone,  of  all 
the  great  novelists  of  England,  won  less  than 
her  duo  share  of  profit  and  renown.  Her  sis 
ters  in  the-  field  were  loaded  down  with  honors. 
When  the  excellent  Mrs.  Opie  became  a 
Friend,  and  refused  to  write  any  more  fiction, 
except,  indeed,  those  moral  but  unlikely  tales 
about  the  awful  consequences  of  lying,  her 
contemporaries  spoke  gravely  of  the  genius 
she  had  sacrificed  at  the  shrine  of  religion. 
Charlotte  Bronte's  masterpiece  gained  instant 
recognition  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  England.  Of  George  Eliot's  sustained 
success  there  is  no  need  to  speak.  But  Jane 
Austen,  whose  incomparable  art  is  now  the 


214  VARIA. 

theme  of  every  critic's  pen,  was  practically 
ignored  while  she  lived,  and  perhaps  never 
suspected,  herself,  how  admirable,  how  per 
fect  was  her  work.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  it  is 
true,  with  the  intuition  of  a  great  story-teller, 
instantly  recognized  this  perfection ;  and  so 
did  Lord  Holland  and  a  few  others,  among 
whom  let  us  always  gladly  remember  George 
IV.,  who  was  wise  enough  to  keep  a  set  of 
Miss  Austen's  novels  in  every  one  of  his 
houses,  and  who  was  happy  enough  to  receive 
the  dedication  of  "  Emma."  Nevertheless,  it 
cannot  be  forgotten  that  fifteen  years  elapsed 
between  the  writing  of  "  Pride  and  Prejudice  " 
and  its  publication ;  that  Cadcll  refused  it 
unread,  — a  dreadful  warning  to  publishers, — 
and  that  all  Miss  Austen  ever  realized  from 
her  books  in  her  lifetime  was  seven  hun 
dred  pounds,  —  one  hundred  pounds  less  than 
Mrs.  liadclifie  received  for  a  single  story,  and 
nearly  two  thousand  pounds  less  than  Frances 
Burney  was  paid  for  her  absolutely  unreada 
ble  "  Camilla."  High-priced  novels  are  by  no 
means  a  modern  innovation,  though  we  hear 
so  much  more  about  them  now  than  formerly. 
Blackwood  gave  Lockhart  one  thousand  pounds 


THE  ROYAL   ROAD   OF  FICTION.        215 

for  the  manuscript  of  "  Reginald  Dalton,"  and 
"  Woodstock  "  brought  to  Scott's  creditors  the 
fabulous  sum  of  eight  thousand  pounds. 

For  with  Sir  Walter  flowered  the  golden 
age  of  English  fiction.  Fortune  and  fame 
came  smiling  at  his  beck,  and  the  great  read 
ing  world  confessed  itself  bettor  and  happier 
for  his  genius.  Then  it  was  that  the  book 
shops  were  besieged  by  clamorous  crowds 
when  a  new  Waverly  novel  was  promised  to 
the  public.  Then  Lord  Holland  sat  up  all 
night  to  finish  "  Old  Mortality."  Then  the 
excitement  over  the  Great  Unknown  reached 
fever  heat,  and  the  art  of  the  novelist  gained 
its  absolute  ascendency,  an  ascendency  unbro 
ken  in  our  day,  and  likely  to  remain  unbroken 
for  many  years  to  come.  At  present,  every 
child  that  learns  its  letters  makes  one  more 
story-reader  in  the  world,  and  the  chances  are 
it  will  make  one  more  story-writer  to  help  del 
uge  the  world  with  fiction.  Novels,  it  has 
been  truly  said,  are  the  only  things  that  can 
never  be  too  dear  or  too  cheap  for  the  market. 
The  beautiful  and  costly  editions  of  Miss 
Austen  and  Scott  and  Thackeray  compete  for 
favor  with  marvelously  cheap  editions  of 


216  VARIA. 

Dickens,  that  true  and  abiding  idol  of  people 
who  have  no  money  to  spend  on  hand-made 
paper  and  broad  margins.  It  is  the  same 
with  living  novelists.  Rare  and  limited  edi 
tions  for  the  rich  ;  cheap  and  unlimited  editions 
for  the  poor ;  all  bought,  all  read,  and  the 
novelist  waxing  more  proud  and  prosperous 
every  day.  So  prosperous,  indeed,  so  proud, 
he  is  getting  too  great  a  man  to  amuse  us  as 
of  yore,  lie  spins  fewer  stories  now,  and  his 
glittering  web  has  grown  a  trifle  gray  and 
dusty  with  the  sweepings  from  back  outlets 
and  mean  streets.  lie  preaches  occasionally 
in  the  market-place,  and  he  says  acrimonious 
tilings  ancnt  other  novelists  whose  ways  of 
thinking  differ  from  his  own.  These  new,  sad 
fashions  of  speecli  are  often  very  grievous  to 
his  readers,  but  nothing  can  rob  him  of  our 
friendship;  for  always  we  hope  that  he  will 
take  us  by  the  hand,  and  lead  us  smilingly 
away  from  the  relentless  realities  of  life  to  the 
golden  regions  of  romance  where  the  immortal 
are. 


FROM  THE  READER'S  STANDPOINT. 

IT  is  a  serious  ago  in  which  wo  live,  and 
there  is  a  painful  sense  of  responsibility 
manifested  by  those  who  have  assigned  to 
themselves  the  task  of  directing  their  fellow 
creatures,  not  only  in  matters  spiritual,  but  in 
all  that  pertains  to  intellectual  or  artistic  life. 
That  we  need  guidance  is  plain  enough ;  the 
helping  hand  of  patient  and  scholarly  criticism 
was  never  more  welcome  than  now ;  but  to  be 
driven,  or  rather  hounded  along  the  sunny 
paths  of  literature  by  severe  and  self-ap 
pointed  teachers  is  not  perhaps  the  surest  way 
of  reaching  the  best  that  has  been  known  and 
thought  in  the  world.  Neither  is  it  calculated 
to  increase  our  enjoyment  en  route.  The 
"personally  conducted"  reader  must  weary 
now  and  then  of  his  restricted  range,  as  well 
as  of  the  peculiar  contentiousness  of  his  guides. 
If  he  be  reading  for  his  own  entertainment,  — 
and  there  are  men  and  women  who  keep  that 
object  steadily  and  selfishly  in  view,  —  if  he  be 


218  VARIA. 

deep  in  a  novel,  for  example,  with  no  other 
purpose  than  an  hour's  unprofitable  pleasure, 
it  is  annoying  to  be  told  by  the  authors  of 
several  other  novels  that  he  has  chosen  this 
pleasure  unwisely,  lie  may  be  pardoned  if, 
in  a  moment  of  irritation,  he  tells  the  dis 
putants  plucking  at  his  sleeve  to  please  go  on 
writing  their  fiction  as  well  as  in  them  lies, 
and  he  will  decide  for  himself  which  of  their 
books  to  read. 

For  it  is  not  in  the  nature  of  man  to  relish 
a  too  strenuous  dictatorship  in  matters  which 
he  cannot  be  made  to  believe  are  of  very  ur 
gent  importance.  When  Mr.  Hamlin  Garland 
says  that  American  literature  must  be  distinctly 
and  unmistakably  American,  that  it  must  be 
faithful  to  American  conditions,  it  is  difficult 
not  to  reply  that  there  is  no  "  must "  for  us 
of  Mr.  Garland's  devising.  Let  him  write 
his  stories  as  he  thinks  best,  and  his  many 
admirers  will  rend  them  with  satisfaction  ;  but 
his  authority  is  necessarily  limited  to  his  own 
literary  offspring.  Ho  cannot  expect  to  whip 
other  people's  child ven.  When  Mr.  Hall 
Caine  tells  the  good  people  of  Edinburgh  that 
the  novelist  is  his  brother's  keeper,  that  it 


FROM  THE  READER'S  STANDPOINT.     219 

is  "evasive  cowardice"  for  him  to  deny  his 
responsibility,  and  that  the  mere  fact  of  his 
having  written  ^  a  book  proves  that  he  feels 
himself  something  stronger  than  his  neighbor 
who  has  n't,  we  only  protest,  as  readers,  against 
assuming  any  share  in  this  spirit  of  acute  con 
scientiousness.  Personally,  I  do  not  believe 
that  it  is  the  duty  of  any  man  or  woman  to 
write  a  novel.  In  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  there 
would  be  greater  merit  in  leaving  it  unwritten. 
But  even  granting  that  the  author  goes  to 
work,  like  Mr.  Caine,  from  the  strictest  sense 
of  moral  liability,  there  can  be  no  correspond 
ing  obligation  on  our  part  to  read  the  tale. 
We  hear  too  much  of  our  failure  to  accept 
and  appreciate  the  gifts  which  the  liberal  gods 
are  now  providing  for  us,  and  it  would  bo 
more  modest,  as  well  as  more  dignified,  if 
those  who  set  the  feast  would  forbear  to  extol 
its  merits. 

As  for  the  rival  schools  of  fiction,  they  may 
as  well  consent  to  live  in  amity  side  by  side. 
If  they  don't  "  fill  one  home  with  glee,"  they 
fill  many  homes  with  that  moderate  gratifica 
tion  which  lightens  a  weary  hour.  Each  has 
its  adherents ;  each  gives  its  allotted  share  of 


220  VARIA. 

pleasure  to  people  who  know  very  well  what 
they  like,  and  who  will  never  be  converted 
by  arguments  into  reading  what  they  don't. 
It  is  useless  to  tell  a  man  who  is  halfway 
through  "  The  House  of  the  Wolf,"  and  obliv 
ious  for  one  blessed  hour  to  everything  in  the 
world  save  the  fate  and  fortunes  of  three 
French  lads,  that  "  the  romantic  novel  repre 
sents  a  juvenile  and,  intellectually  considered, 
lower  stage  of  development  than  the  realistic 
novel."  Ho  does  n't  care  the  value  of  a  ha' 
penny  for  stages  of  development.  He  is  not 
reading  "The  House  of  this  Wolf  "  by  way 
of  mental  or  moral  discipline.  Ho  is  not  to 
be  persuaded  into  exchanging  it  unfinished  for 
"  The  Apprenticeship  of  Lemuel  Barker,"  be 
cause  more  "  creative  intelligence  "  is  required 
to  tell  a  story  without  incident  —  when  there 
is,  so  to  speak,  no  story  to  tell.  What  is  it 
to  him, if  the  book  were  hard  or  easy  to  write? 
Why  should  lie  be  reminded  perpetually  by 
realists  and  veritists  of-  the  arduous  nature  of 
their  task?  He  did  not  put  them  to  work. 
The  one  and  only  thing  which  is  of  vital  in 
terest  to  him  is  the  tale  itself.  The  author's 
point  of  view,  his  sense  of  personal  responsi- 


FROM   THE   READER'S   STANDPOINT.     221 

bility,  tho  artistic  limits  which  ho  sets  himself, 
the  difficulties  which  he  piles  in  his  own  way 
and  heroically  overcomes,  the  particular  plat 
form  from  which  he  addresses  the  universe, 
his  stern  adherence  to  actualities,  his  truthful 
treatment  of  material,  —  all  these  things  about 
which  we  hear  so  much,  mean  nothing,  and 
less  than  nothing  to  the  reader.  Give  him 
the  Look,  and  he  asks  to  know  no  more,  lie 
judges  it  by  some  standard  of  his  own,  which 
may  not  bear  the  test  of  critical  analysis,  but 
which  is  moro  convincing  to  him  than  tho 
recorded  opinion  of  tho  writer.  The  wife  of 
his  bosom  and  his  college-bred  daughter  arc 
powerless  to  persuade  him  that  Tourgueneff 
in  a  better  novelist  than  Dickens.  And  when 
he  stoutly  resists  this  pressure  from  within, 
this  subtle  and  penetrating  influence  of  femi 
nine  culture,  it  is  worse  than  useless  to  attack 
him  from  without  with  supercilious  remarks 
anent  juvenility,  and  the  immature  stage  of 
his  development. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  realistic  story- 
writers  are  more  prone  to  tell  us  about  them 
selves  and  their  methods  than  are  the  heroic 
narrators  of  improbable,  but  none  the  less 


222  VARIA. 

interesting,  romances.  Mr.  Eider  Haggard, 
indeed,  from  time  to  time  insinuates  that  he, 
too,  is  trammeled  by  the  obstinate  nature  of 
facts,  and  that  there  is  a  restraining  and 
troublesome  ingredient  of  truth  mingled  with 
his  fiction.  But  this  is  surely  a  pleasant  jest 
on  Mr.  Haggard's  part.  A  Ye  cannot  believe 
that  he  ever  denied  himself  an  incident  in  the 
entire  course  of  his  literary  life.  Mr.  Steven 
son  defended  with  characteristic  spirit  those 
keenly  imaginative  and  adventurous  talcs 
which  have  made  the  whole  world  kin,  and  to 
whose  splendid  inspiration  we  owo  perilling 
the  added  heritage  of  "  Kidnapped "  and 
u  Treasure  Island."  Mr.  Lang  throws  down 
his  gauntlet  unhesitatingly  in  behalf  of  ro 
mance,  and  fights  her  battles  with  joyous  and 
animating  zeal.  But  Mr.  Lang  is  not  pre 
eminently  a  novelist.  lie  only  drops  into 
fiction  now  and  then,  as  Mr.  Wegg  dropped 
into  poetry,  in  the  intervals  of  more  urgent 
avocations.  Moreover,  it  is  seldom  from  these 
authors  that  we  gather  our  minute  information 
concerning  tlie  duties  and  difficulties  of  novel- 
writing.  They  have  been  too  wary  to  betray 
the  secrets  of  the  craft.  It  is  Mr.  Garland, 


FROM   THE  READER'S  STANDPOINT.     223 

for  instance*  and  not  Mr.  Stanley  Weyman, 
who  confides  to  us  what  we  had  never  even 
suspected,  —  the  veritist's  lack  of  control  over 
the  characters  he  has  created.  "  He  cannot 
shove  them  about,"  we  are  told,  and  are 
amazed  to  hear  it,  "  nor  marry  them,  nor  kill 
them.  What  they  do,  they  do  by  their  own 
will,  or  through  nature's  arrangement.  Their 
very  names  come  by  some  singular  attraction. 
The  veritist  cannot  name  his  characters  arbi 
trarily/' 

Small  wonder  ho  finds  his  task  a  hard  one  ! 
Small  wonder  ho  ways  HO  much  about  the  diili- 
c'tilticH  which  beset  him!  !I»  docs  his  duty 
by  Mary  Jane,  provides  her  with  a  lover,  and 
laboriously  strives  to  strew  with  novelistio 
thorns  the  devious  paths  of  courtship.  What 
must  be  his  sentiments,  when  the  ungrateful 
hussy  refuses,  after  all  his  trouble,  to  marry 
the  young  man.  Or  perhaps  she  declines  to 
bo  called  Mary  Ann,  and  insists  that  her 
name  is  Arabella,  to  his  great  annoyance  and 
discomfiture.  Lurid  possibilities  of  revolt 
suggest  themselves  on  every  side,  until  the 
unhappy  novel-writer,  notwithstanding  his  do- 
tustatioii  of  the  "  feudal  ideal,"  as  illustrated 


224  VARJA. 

by  Sir  Walter  Scott,  must  sigh  occasionally 
for  "  les  Droits  Seigneuriaux"  which  would 
enable  him  to  hang  a  few  of  his  rebellious 
puppets,  "pour  cncouraycr  les  autrcs."  It 
may  be  worth  while,  in  this  connection,  to 
remind  him  of  the  absolutely  arbitrary  manner 
in  which  Mr.  Anthony  Trollope,  that  true 
master  of  realism,  disposed  of  Mrs.  Proudie. 
If  ever  there  was  a  character  in  fiction  whom 
we  should  have  trusted  to  hold  her  own  against 
her  author,  Mrs.  Proudie  was  that  character. 
No  reasonable  creature  will  for  a  moment  pre 
tend  that  an  amiable,  easy-going,  middle-aged 
gentleman  like  Mr.  Trollope  was  a  match  for 
the  Bishop's  wife,  who  had,  in  her  day,  routed 
many  a  stronger  man.  She  had  lived  so  long, 
too.  In  novel  after  novel  she  had  played  her 
vigorous  part,  until  the  right  to  go  on  living 
was  hers  by  force  of  established  usage  and  cus 
tom.  Yet  this  is  what  happened.  One  morning 
'Mr.  Trollope,  while  writing  at  the  Athemeum 
Club,  enjoyed  the  salutary  experience  of  hear 
ing  himself  criticised,  and  very  unfavorably 
criticised,  by  two  of  the  club  members.  Among 
other  tilings,  they  said  they  were  tired  of 
reading  about  the  same  people  over  and  over 


FROM   TIIK  HEADER'S  STANDPOINT.     225 

again;  they  thought  if  a  man  had  not  wit 
enough  to  evolve  new  characters,  he  had  better 
give  up  composing  novels ;  and  they  objected 
especially  to  the  perpetual  domination  of  a 
woman  so  odious  as  Mrs.  Proudie.  At  this 
juncture,  Mr.  Trollope  could  be  silent  no 
longer.  lie  arose,  confessed  his  identity,  ad 
mitted  his  sin,  and  promised,  by  way  of 
amendment,  to  kill  Mrs.  Proudie  "  before  the 
week  was  out ;  "  for  were  not  the  unfinished 
chapters  of  the  "  Last  Chronicles  of  Burset  " 
lying  at  that  moment  on  his  table  ?  And 
what  is  more,  lie  kept  his  word.  lie  slew  Mrs. 
Proudie,  apparently  quite  oblivious  to  the  fact 
that  he  was  interfering  unwarrantably  with 
"  nature's  arrangement.''  I  mention  this  in 
cident  to  show  that  it  is  possible  for  a  really 
determined  author,  who  knows  his  rights  and 
will  have  them,  to  overcome  the  resistance  of 
the  most  obstinate  character  in  his  book. 

For  the  rest,  it  does  not  appear  to  the  peace- 
loving  reader  that  either  the  realist  or  the 
romancist  has  any  very  convincing  arguments 
to  offer  in  defense  of  his  own  exclusive  ortho 
doxy.  When  the  romancist  affirms  that  his 
books  lift  men  out  of  the  sordid,  painful  reali- 


2i>()  \\UUA. 

tics  of  life  into  a  healthier  atmosphere,  and 
make  them  temporarily  forgetful  of  sadness 
and  discontent,  the  realist  very  sensibly  replies 
that  he  prefers  faets,  however  sordid,  to  lit 
erary  anodynes,  and  that  it  is  his  peculiar  plea 
sure  to  grapple  with  things  as  they  are.  When 
the  realist  remarks  in  turn  that  nothing  is 
easier  than  to  write  of  love  and  war,  but  that 
it u  lacks  distinction,"  and  shows  a  puerile  and 
childish  mind,  the  romancist  merely  chuckles, 
and  clasps  "  Les  Trois  Mousquetaires  "  closer 
to  his  heart.  Neither  of  the  combatants  is 
likely  to  be  much  affected  by  anything  the 
other  has  to  say,  and  we,  outside  the  ring,  can 
but  echo  Marianne  Dashwood's  sentiment, 
u  This  is  admiration  of  a  very  particular  kind." 
Mr.  Stevenson  and  Mr.  Lang  have  both  dis 
tinctly  recorded  their  debt  of  gratitude  to 
Dumas.  They  cannot  and  do  not  claim  that 
he  is  at  all  times  an  edifying  writer ;  but  many 
a  weary  hour  has  been  brightened  for  them  by 
the  magic  of  his  art,  many  a  fretful  doubt  laid 
to  rest  by  contact  with  his  virile  gaycty  and 
courage.  On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Boycsen 
has  just  as  distinctly  and  just  as  sincerely 
assured  ns  that  Dumas  had  no  charm  nor  spell 


•MOM   T1IK   RKADKK'S    STANbrOlXT.     227 

for  him,  and  he  has  added  his  impression  that 
it  is  only  those  who,  intellectually,  never  out 
grow  their  boyhood  who  continue  to  delight  in 
such  "sensational  chronicles  of  impossible 
deeds/* 

It  is  in  this  latter  statement,  which  has  been 
repeated  over  and  over  again  with  as  many 
variations  as  a  popular  air,  that  the  peculiar 
temper  of  the  realist  stands  revealed.  Ho  is 
not  only  sure  that  stories  of  adventure  are  not 
to  his  liking,  but  he  is  equally  sure  that  those 
who  do  enjoy  them  are  his  intellectual  infe 
riors,  or  at  least  that  they  have  not  reached  a 
mental  maturity  commensurate  with  his  own. 
lie  says  so,  with  pleasing  candor,  whenever  lie 
has  the  opportunity.  He  is,  in  general,  what 
the  Ettrick  Shepherd  neatly  terms  *4a  bigot  to 
his  ain  abeelities,"  and  it  would  be  hard  to 
convince  him  that  Dumas  is  none  the  less,  in 
the  words  of  Miehelet,  "  a  force  of  nature," 
because  Jic  is  not  personally  stirred  by  that 
force,  or  because  he  knows  a  number  of  intelli 
gent  men  who  are  no  more  affected  than  he  is. 
For  myself,  I  can  but  say  that,  being  con 
strained  once  to  spend  two  days  in  Marseilles, 
the  only  thing  that  reconciled  mo  to  my  fate 


228  VARIA. 

was  the  sight  of  the  gray  Chateau  <TIf  stand 
ing,  stern  and  solitary,  amid  the  roughened 
waters.  "Banks  and  tariffs,  the  newspaper 
and  tho  caucus,"  may,  as  Emerson  says,  u  rest 
on  the  same  foundations  of  wonder  as  the 
town  of  Troy  and  the  Temple  of  Delphos ; " 
but,  personally,  I  am  more  susceptible  to  Troy, 
or  even  to  the  Chateau  d'lf,  than  I  am  to 
banks,  of  which  useful  institutions  Marseilles 
contains  a  number,  all  very  handsome  and 
imposing.  This  is,  perhaps,  a  matter  of  tem 
perament  and  training,  or  it  may  be  that  mine 
is  one  of  those  "  primitive  natures  "  for  whose 
"  weak  and  childish  imaginations,"  as  Mr. 
Ilowells  phrases  it,  such  unrealities  are  a  ne 
cessary  stimulant.  It  is  true  that  1  might,  if 
1  chose,  shelter  myself  under  the  generous 
mantle  of  Dr.  Johnson,  who  was  known  to 
say  that  "  the  books  we  read  with  most  plea 
sure  are  light  compositions  which  contain  a 
quick  succession  of  events ; "  but,  after  all, 
this  was  but  the  expression  of  the  doctor's 
personal  preference,  and  of  no  more  weight 
than  are  the  words  of  living  critics  who  share, 
or  who  do  not  share,  in  his  opinion. 


FROM   THE  READER'S  STANDPOINT.     U29 

"  A  good  cause,"  says  Sir  Thomas  Browne, 
"needs  not  to  be  patron 'd  by  passion,  but 
can  sustain  itself  upon  a  temperate  dispute ; " 
and  if  scornful  words  be  unneeded  —  and  un 
heeded —  in  matters  of  moment,  they  simply 
run  to  waste  when  poured  out  over  trivialities. 
\Vo  are  asked  to  take  everything  so  seriously 
in  this  unlmmorous  age,  to  talk  about  the 
novel  as  a  "  powerful  educational  agent,'1  and 
to  discuss  the  "  profound  and  complex  logic  of 
reality  "  in  a  short  story  of  mild  interest  and 
modest  wit.  This  confuses  our  sense  of  pro 
portion,  and  we  grow  restive  under  a  pressure 
too  severe.  Yet  who  shall  say  that  the  public, 
big,  amiable,  and  unconcerned,  is  not  grateful 
for  every  readable  book  that  strays  into  its 
path?  Romance  and  realism,  the  proven  and 
the  impossible,  wild  stories  of  youthful  pas 
sion  and  s-.'date  studies  of  middle-aged  spin 
sters,  tales  of  New  England  villages,  tales  of 
Western  towns,  tales  of  Scotch  hamlets,  and 
tales  of  the  mist-hinds  beyond  the  mountains 
of  Africa,  are  all  welcomed  and  read  with 
avidity.  The  novelist,  unless  he  be  inhumanly 
dull,  is  sure  of  his  audience,  and  he  grows  di- 


VARIA. 

(lactic  from  sheer  excess  of  prosperity.  When 
the  Kev.  Mr.  John  Watson  (Ian  Maclarcn) 
wrote  u  Beside  the  Bonnie  Briar  Bush,'*  the 
book  went  straight  to  many  hearths  and  many 
hearts.  It  was  not  an  epoch-making  work  by 
any  means,  but  its  homely  pathos  and  humor 
insured  for  it  an  immediate  hearing,  and  most 
eomfortable  returns.  The  crities  united  in  its 
praise,  and  the  publishers  gave  us  at  once  to 
understand  how  many  copies  had  been  sold. 
Why,  then,  did  Mr.  Watson,  to  whom  the  gods 
had  been  so  kind,  lift  up  his  voice  in  a  few 
short  months  to  say  supercilious  things  anent 
all  schools  of  fiction  save  his  own?  The  world 
is  wider  than  Scotland,  and  local  coloring  is 
not  humanity's  one  need.  It  will  be  long  ere 
we  believe  that  the  art  of  story-telling  began 
with  "  A  Window  in  Thrums,"  or  that  "  Beside 
the  Bonnie  Briar  Bush  "  marks  its  final  devel 
opment.  Let  us  rather  remember  with  grati 
tude  that  Mr.  Barrio,  an  artist  too  versatile  to 
be  intolerant,  has  recorded,  in  place  of  delicate 
self-analysis  and  self-congratulation,  his  sincere 
reverence  for  Scott,  and  Dickens,  and  Thack 
eray,  and  Fielding,  and  Smollett,  "  old-fash- 


FROM   THE  'READER'S   STANDPOINT,     231 

ionod  novelists  of  some  repute,"  whoso  horizon 
is  wide  ns  tho  sound  of  our  English  tongue, 
and  whoso  sun  is  not  yet  set. 

If  wo  cannot  havo  peace,  let  us  then  have 
a  truce,  as  in  the  old  fighting  days,  a  truce 
of  six  months  or  a  year.  It  would  freshen 
us  amazingly  to  hear  nothing  for  a  whole 
year  about  the  "  soul-searching  veracity  of  Tol- 
stoY,"  and  a  great  many  timid  people  might 
pluck  up  heart  to  read  that  fine  novelist,  who 
has  been  rendered  so  alarming  by  his  admirers. 
For  a  year  the  romancist  could  write  of  young 
people  who  marry,  and  the  realist  of  middle- 
aged  people  who  don't ;  and,  in  tho  renewed 
tranquillity  of  content,  each  workman  might 
perhaps  recognize  the  strength  of  the  other's 
position.  For  youth,  and  age,  and  marriage, 
and  celibacy  are  alike  familiar  to  us  all.  We 
have  no  crying  need  to  bo  enlightened  on  these 
subjects,  though  we  cheerfully  consent  to  be 
entertained  by  them.  "  If  the  public  do  not 
know  what  books  to  read,"  says  Mr.  Lang 
very  truthfully,  "  it  is  not  for  lack  of  cheap 
and  copious  instruction."  We  are  sated  some 
times  with  good  advice,  and  grow  a  little  tired 


232  VARIA. 

of  education.  There  are  days  even  when  we 
recall  with  mingled  regret  and  gratitude  the 
gray -haired,  unknown  author  of  "  Aucassin  and 
Nioolette,"  who  wove  his  tale  in  the  humble 
hope  that  it  might  for  a  brief  moment  glad 
den  the  sad  hearts  of  men. 


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